SKOWHEGAN — The company contracted to oversee the ongoing athletic complex project at the Skowhegan Community Center  was awarded a new contract to formally expand its role.

Steven Govoni Contributed photo

The Board of Selectmen approved an additional $60,000 agreement with Skowhegan-based Wentworth Partners & Associates, run by Selectman Steven Govoni, at its meeting Tuesday. The agreement adds to a $60,000 contract awarded in May for the firm to oversee a separate part of the multifaceted project as clerk of works.

Govoni, who is Wentworth’s president, brought the proposal to the board, as he said his company has already been doing additional work and is losing money.

“Right now, Wentworth Partners is upside down on this project,” Govoni said.

While discussing the project, Govoni left his seat at the board’s table and addressed the board as a member of the public. He abstained in the subsequent vote on the new agreement.

Wentworth’s original contract was to oversee what is called “Phase 2, Project 1,” which includes a baseball field and other related infrastructure. The company was the lone bidder on the clerk of works contract in May.

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That portion of the project is just one aspect of an overall project that includes work on facilities and plans for a multipurpose playing field and tennis and pickleball courts at and around the existing Skowhegan Community Center at 39 Poulin Drive. The phase was deemed a priority in 2024 because Skowhegan’s baseball team was left without a home field in town following the sale of Memorial Field to Maine School Administrative District 54 for the construction of a new school.

Of the $60,000 contract to oversee that phase, Wentworth Partners & Associates has been paid two payments of $15,000. Govoni told the board that amount goes toward paying his colleague, George Bell, who Wentworth brought on to manage this project.

“That $60,000 does not cover one single minute of my time,” Govoni said.

Govoni wrote in a Jan. 10 email to Town Manager Dawn DiBlasi and other town officials that Wentworth was already in the hole $18,200 for the baseball field portion of the project as of the end of 2024.

He asked for the new $60,000 contract so that Wentworth can oversee what is called “Phase 1” — the work near the community center that includes a maintenance garage, Little League field dugouts, and other infrastructure and related compliance and permitting work.

Phase 1 work was not included in Wentworth’s original contract, but the firm has been working on it because of “poor construction issues” and the development of a master plan for the entire site, Govoni wrote in the email. The work exceeding the original scope of services was “at risk” and Wentworth has no recourse for seeking payment for the work it has done so far, Govoni said Tuesday.

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The new agreement to oversee Phase 1 should cover Wentworth’s services for the next two to three years of the project, Govoni said.

Having a clerk of works has been valuable, Govoni said, citing the negotiation prices provided by Ranger Construction Corp., a contractor working on the athletic complex, to remove ledge and remediate a pond, which in total saved the town thousands of dollars.

“Those are the kind of things that on the clerk of works’ side that we’ve brought to the table so far,” Govoni said, though he acknowledged others played a role in those decisions, too.

Work on the baseball field and other related infrastructure began in October. It is projected to be finished by spring 2026.

Town officials, meanwhile, also considered at the select board meeting Tuesday how to handle funding issues and lackluster engineering services.

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