Skowhegan to hire clerk of works to oversee community center athletic complex project

SKOWHEGAN — The Board of Selectmen is moving forward with hiring a clerk of works for the new athletic complex at the town’s community center, a move that officials agreed was necessary to ensure that a major, decades-long project is completed without issues.

The clerk of works will be a contractor that provides construction oversight as the new facilities at 39 Poulin Drive in Skowhegan are built. The oversight will ensure that the construction contractor follows plans and specifications, and reduce the workload on town staff who do not have a background in construction, according to town officials.

Select Board members agreed Tuesday to send out a request for proposals for the clerk of works services, bringing an end to weeks of finger-pointing and frustration from some who wanted to go out to bid sooner.

There is currently no timeline to begin construction of the baseball field, multipurpose turf field and tennis courts at the complex because of a delay in a required federal approval process, town officials said earlier this month. But other parts of the project, including dugouts at the Little League fields, a maintenance garage, and a concession stand, are already underway.

As construction begins at the community center complex — a project the town began in 2006 — selectmen and Interim Town Manager David Bucknam, who is also Skowhegan’s chief of police, first discussed hiring a clerk of works at a late February meeting.

The discussion came as construction finished at the new $8 million-plus public safety building on East Madison Road. Some selectmen have expressed disappointment at the quality of construction at that building.

“We need a clerk of works for this project so that the ballfield is not a debacle like the public safety building,” said Selectman Charles Robbins, who is the vice chairman of the board, at a March 12 meeting. “We’re talking millions of dollars.”

In late February, Select Board members tasked the town’s Recreation Advisory Committee to send them a recommendation for the clerk of works position. But the committee canceled its regular March meeting, so Select Board members could not send the clerk of works proposal out to bid until the committee met again in April.

That led Robbins, who was a Select Board representative on the committee, to resign his spot on the committee out of frustration. The committee was not meeting consistently, and sometimes changed the time of its meeting at the last minute to the early afternoon, Robbins said.

“It’s been clouded by the ballfield expansion,” Robbins said while discussing his resignation at a March 26 selectmen’s meeting. “And the ballfield expansion is an absolute disaster. It is a black eye on this town.”

Others defended the committee, saying that it now is active after many years of not meeting and it now has a chairman, Soren Siren. The meeting times were also approved by a majority of its members.

“There’s good people on these committees,” said Select Board Chairman Todd Smith, who recommended the committee hold its meetings later in the evening to allow more people to participate.

The committee ultimately met Tuesday, April 2, to finalize its recommendation to the Board of Selectmen to contract a clerk of works.

With Tuesday’s vote by the selectmen, contractors have just over two weeks to submit bids, which are scheduled to be opened Friday, April 26. Select Board members said they need enough time to consider how to cover the cost as the town’s budget for the next fiscal year comes together in the next month.