Everett repair: Town vs. contractor
Trying to settle percentage of costs, based on who is to blame, concerning Everett Road greenway repairs, Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen voted to meet a contractor’s request halfway.
In a 3-1 vote during its meeting Thursday, Aug. 23, the Board agreed to pay $5,000 in extra expenses instead of $10,000 requested by contractor Mark McKinnon, owner of McKinnon Construction Co., LLC.
Before this vote, the Town’s original agreement with McKinnon for its total cost of repair expenses was $29,250, which was going toward materials. McKinnon’s portion was $31,360 before this vote, which was going toward labor.
Mayor Ron Williams, Vice Mayor Louise Povlin and Alderman Scott Meyer voted to pay the $5,000, while Alderman Ron Pinchok voted against the motion.
“(McKinnon) made an agreement” where the Town would pay nothing extra, Pinchok said. “I think he should be held to the agreement.”
Povlin asked the deadline for McKinnon to finish the work be extended from Thursday, Sept. 6, to Friday, Sept. 7, which passed.
“... We feel like this (issue) has been lingering long enough, and we would like to try to get this done,” Town administrator David Smoak said.
Town attorney Tom Hale said after the project was completed, some rippling and rutting, or grooves, appeared on both sides the trail: “We had some borings done by GEOServices. It appeared from those results that there was insufficient materials per the specifications in certain areas underneath the trails.
“McKinnon had ideas of his own about why the rutting was occurring,” he added. “(He said) during the course of construction, the Town saw an opportunity to save a substantial amount of money by using certain fill material … rather than to get new dirt.”
Repairing the eastern portion of the greenway but refusing to complete the western portion, McKinnon had blamed the rutting on the Town using a heavy tractor on the trail. “(McKinnon) found what he thought was conclusive evidence he was not at fault,” Hale said.
However, “the reason we reached the resolution is we had evidence there were other problems,” he added, noting issues with the stone base and paving.
