Board Fires Vista School Contractor : Work on $20-Million Facility Running Behind Schedule

Vista school board members have fired the builder of the district’s second high school because they feared that he couldn’t finish the job by the start of fall classes in September.

In a special meeting Wednesday afternoon, district trustees unanimously voted to fire contractor C.V. Holder of Gardena, who had already missed a March deadline for completing the $20-million Rancho Buena Vista High School.

District officials now hope to fill Holder’s position by next week so the 1,600 students scheduled to attend the new high school won’t have to further crowd the already jammed Vista High School.

Trustee Jim Hagar said the district no longer trusts Holder’s ability to direct the $20-million construction job.

Lack of Confidence

“We didn’t have any confidence that efforts were going to be made to complete the job (on time),” Hagar said.

“We thought if we took control of the job we would have a better shot.”

Hagar added that the district will keep the subcontractors who had been working for Holder.

“We’re basically just looking for a construction superintendent,” Hagar said.

For the sake of Vista High School, which is 1,700 students over its 2,000 student capacity, the district must find someone soon to finish the job, Hagar said.

Firing Holder “is a gamble that all board members are aware of. . . . If it takes us a month to find somebody, then it was a wrong decision,” Hagar said.

Hagar said the district has no one slated to replace Holder.

Much of the roofing at the school is incomplete, as are the heating and air conditioning systems, and hallways, Hagar said.

Subcontractors Blamed

Holder couldn’t be reached for comment. In the past, he has cited problems with subcontractors as the reason why construction was lagging.

Last week, district trustees warned Holder to provide evidence that he could complete the job or be fired.

Almost from its inception, the high school has had problems. First, the cost of construction increased because of unexpected changes in state law that required, for example, additional and more expensive science laboratories.

Then the economic climate changed. Contractors who were strapped for business when the school was designed in the early 1980s had more than enough work by the time the project went to bid in 1985.

As a result, the price to build the school increased some more, causing school officials to make $900,000 in cutbacks, leading to the elimination of such things as covered walkways, all but one skylight, and a weightlifting room.