Construction not quite complete

Mike Swanson

Summer construction at Laguna Beach High School and Thurston Middle

School will continue into the school year due to unforeseen

conditions cited by the project manager, but none of the remaining

work includes classrooms.

Projects at Top of the World and El Morro Elementary schools are

both scheduled for completion today. Workers at Thurston and the high

school, however, have encountered somewhat usual unforeseen

conditions, such as storm drain difficulties, and unpredictable

trouble -- exterior doors.

Project manager Andrew Raufi said the person responsible for

providing the doors hasn’t delivered.

None of the missing exterior doors are to academic buildings, but

the new Thurston gym’s doorways have to be sealed with plastic each

night so the new floor isn’t damaged by moisture, Neuhausen said. The

gym should be available for use by Sept. 20, provided the doors

arrive.

Thurston Principal Chris Duddy sent a mailer to parents detailing

what had happened, why it had happened and what the school was going

to do about it, Supt. Theresa Daem said.

Dugger Gym and the Artist’s Theater at the high school should be

done by November, Neuhausen said.

“When push came to shove with time and resources, everything was

pushed toward classrooms and away from the theater and the gym,” Daem

said.

Neuhausen said he deemed the community facilities just as

important in the long run, but classrooms and offices had to be

finished before school started.

Top of the World has an interim playground in place until the new

one is built and six portables, which housed classrooms during

construction, still on the playground. Neuhausen said the children

still had plenty of room to play.

El Morro, meanwhile, has a retaining wall that moved considerably

during a period of heavy rainfall earlier this year. The board OK’d a

$10,860 contract Tuesday to an independent company to provide a

geotechnical analysis of the wall and prepare a report of what needs

to be done.

Daem requested at the end of the meeting that a thank you letter

be sent to the city for being so cooperative during the schools’

extensive summer construction.

“Adversities are no problem,” Raufi said. “That’s what we live

for.”