Chapter 186

As I drove into the college on Wednesday, I saw mountains of bedding stacked outside of B dorm. The time sheets backed up piles of trash waiting to go into dumpsters. The cameras showed a dozen trucks backing into position. Maintenance had their skid loader loading the first. It continued all day.

Cindy texted me that they had ten of the group from last night show up at 8 AM this morning. The ones that I had not interviewed for KCC were being interviewed by Jason and Roseanne. Cindy was getting the background information together on them and Jenny was coming home early today to run the criminal checks.

Four of them were to go to the company doctor this afternoon for physicals. The others would be in training in the gym with Vicky and Ching Lee. I wondered how many would survive that? Ching Lee and Vicky had both taken on a whole new determination and drive to the training since the Rochester incident.

Cindy texted me again that 10 more from last night - including three couples - would be at the gym at 1. She was going to revise the schedule some and stay late to see that everything was done. I wondered where Mark was in all this; Cindy seemed to be in charge.

There was another meeting in the security meeting room; this time it was insurance adjusters and lawyers. A second meeting was with OSHA, MOSHA and the construction company. I was not included in either of these and I was glad of it. The third meeting was with the contractor, Mr. Bozman and the Board and I was to sit in on that one.

The meeting started with the contractor coming up with excuses as to why they could not have the damaged section replaced in time for the college start. "There are no blueprints yet, they have to be approved by zoning and that is going to take weeks. There are no building permits yet."

The board was not happy. Then Mr. Bozman interrupted their complaint session.

"Ken Smith and I found the original blueprints to B dorm last night. Those blueprints were sent by special courier to the engineering division of Jones & Jones International. They will be returned to me tomorrow morning with the latest construction and fire safety changes to meet all federal, state, and local requirements, plus the latest energy saving designs, and they will blend in to the original building design."

"A legal team that I have on retainer that handles construction issues for me met with the county planning and zoning this morning. Buried deep in their rule and regulation book are special exemptions for emergencies for public institutions. What happened here meets the criteria. As soon as they receive a copy of the blueprints, a building permit will be issued within an hour," he said.

"You will be pouring the footer on Friday afternoon and laying block on Monday morning, or I will have a construction team rebuild the dorm and send you the bill, starting Monday afternoon. I am tired of all the excuses coming from your construction group and I know everyone else in this room is also," Mr. Bozman said. "Vital pieces of required safety gear that were not properly assembled on the crane led to this accident. Luckily no one was killed. An hour earlier 4 maintenance people were in that part of the building."

I knew as soon as he said Jones & Jones he was still in tight with Jake's company. I knew that the legal team was also Jake's connection.

The construction company owners started to say something then stopped. They stood up then sat back down. Then they asked if the plans would be accompanied by a materials list?

Thursday morning the contractor was cutting up the boom with torches and loading them onto trucks. In the afternoon the contractor began loading the debris and old concrete footer. All work had ceased on the new dorm and would not resume until the manpower was no longer needed in the rebuild of B.

Friday morning Mr. Bozman had several dozen very thick stacks of blueprints on the table in the meeting room. The permit was hand delivered from zoning at 9 AM. The contractor, his engineer and the board had been called and were on their way. This was going to be one interesting meeting.

The meeting was cordial - that surprised the hell out of me after yesterday's outburst. The contractor picked up the blueprints and the materials list and then politely informed the board that the job would be finished in time for the start of the fall semester and that his insurance company was picking up all expenses.