District OKs Contract on School Air Conditioning
The Los Angeles Board of Education approved a $155-million contract Tuesday to install air conditioning in 150 schools.
PGCH, a joint venture of PG & E Energy Services and the engineering and construction firm CH2MHill, has guaranteed to complete work at 58 schools by September, and to complete all the work within budget.
The contract signing brings to partial fruition an 18-month campaign by a volunteer oversight committee to make a single firm responsible for the air conditioning at 300 schools under the $2.4-billion 1997 school construction bond measure BB.
Steve Soboroff, chairman of the committee, hailed the signing as a big step forward for schoolchildren because it will ensure high quality work at a specified price.
However, Soboroff termed the event “a small step for the bureaucracy” because it took so long. “It could have been all the schools, and it could have been a year and a half ago,” he said.
The agreement includes an unspecified discount on electricity charges from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and PG & E Energy Services.
For competitive reasons, school officials said, they were authorized only to say the discount would amount to millions of dollars over several years.
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