OFF PAGE ONE
Wallowa County Chieftain
A8
Wednesday, February 16, 2022
Crane to stay on
for another year
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE — Tom
Crane, the interim super-
intendent for Enterprise
Schools, has agreed to stay
on another year, he said
Thursday, Feb. 3.
The former Enterprise
school teacher and coach
who returned last summer to
fi ll the post vacated by Erika
Pinkerton initially came out
of retirement to take the job
for a single year. He said
that school board members
met with a representative
of the Oregon State School
Board Association to talk
with the search company
that is seeking a permanent
superintendent and con-
cluded that Enterprise’s best
alternative is to keep Crane
on for another year.
“There is a large number
of superintendent vacancies
this year,” Crane said.
He said there are at least
28 vacancies throughout the
state.
“It’s a tough job,” he
said, with all the added dif-
fi culties of the COVID-19
pandemic making it harder.
Replacing Crane with a
newcomer now would be all
the more diffi cult because of
the ongoing projects within
the district, such as the
construction work funded
largely by the 2020 school
bond.
“They spent a lot of time
training me about the bond
and they’d have to do it
again,” he said.
There’s also the task of
replacing Enterprise High
School Principal Blake
Carlsen, who resigned last
fall. Carlsen, who is leav-
ing to be closer to family in
Texas, originally was going
to leave at the end of 2021,
but asked to stay on until
the end of the current school
year, Crane said. He said the
school board approved that
request.
Although Crane was
“happily retired” when he
took the interim post, he’s
content to stay on another
year.
“I like what I’m doing
and being back,” he said.
“The community has really
been welcoming.”
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Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
As the snow begins to melt off the roof of the Enterprise School, the replacement of that roof becomes more imperative. Plans
are in place to replace the roof this summer, along with other projects.
Schools:
Continued from Page A1
functional life,” Hibbert
said. “The roofi ng product
has degraded and needs to be
replaced.”
The roofi ng job was orig-
inally intended to be done
last summer, but the contrac-
tor who put in the original
bid was unable to obtain the
needed insulation because
of COVID-related supply
chain problems. As an emer-
gency measure, the district
contracted with a La Grande
fi rm to do a spray coating
in October to get the roofs
through this winter.
The
other
priorities
scheduled for this year
include mitigating stormwa-
ter runoff issues and asbes-
tos abatement. The latter has
to be accomplished with the
HVAC work.
The district had to rebid
the roof project in Decem-
ber, but the district only
received one bid — which
was accepted. Palmer Roof-
ing of Pendleton submit-
ted the approved bid. Palm-
er’s bid was for about $2.3
million — about $1 mil-
lion higher than the previous
approved bid, cutting into the
available funds, Hibbert said.
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INTERESTED IN A BID?
To make a bid on one of the subcontractor projects at the
Enterprise school:
Who: Joseph Hull at McCormack Construction Co., Pendleton
Phone: 541-276-1353 or 541-969-4475
Email: joseph@mccormackconstruction.com
Limited funds
But increased costs of
building materials have lim-
ited what the district can do
with its $8.85 million, Crane
and Hibbert agreed.
“Our total project budget
hasn’t changed. It’s just how
much we can buy with that
money,” Hibbert said. “Our
goal is to buy as much for the
district as we possibly can.
We’ve just really been chal-
lenged with supply-chain
issues and price increases
that have been nationwide
in the construction industry
since COVID started.”
Some of the projects
now scheduled for sum-
mer of 2023 that could be
aff ected include accessibil-
ity upgrades to comply with
Americans with Disability
Act standards and remod-
eling the science room and
the girls’ locker room, Hib-
bert said. Those are the high-
est-priority projects for next
year, although lesser projects
also are planned.
The accessibility upgrades
include the possibility of ele-
vators in the middle and high
school buildings, each of
which is two stories.
“Our original plan in
the bond scope had been to
do two elevators … eleva-
tors give you a lot of bang
for your buck, but they’re
expensive,” Hibbert said.
“So we may need to revisit
other ways to improve that
accessibility; maybe we’re
not doing an elevator, but
we can improve accessibility
routing and things like that.”
But Crane said they hav-
en’t given up on those later
projects.
“Nothing has been taken
off of the list,” he said. “We
have a Bond Oversight
Committee that is going to,
when we get done with this
summer and we know the
amount of money we have
(left over), and will recom-
mend which project or proj-
ects we can do the following
summer.”
Hibbert agreed.
“What’s great about that
Bond Oversight Committee
is that a lot of the folks on it
were in the long-range facil-
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ity planning eff ort so they’ve
had continuity through the
whole project and can really
speak to original priorities
and present a well-rounded
recommendation to the dis-
trict’s board,” she said.
Construction schedule
At present, plans are to
begin work in May, although
school doesn’t recess for the
summer until June 9 and the
kids return in the last week of
August for fall term.
“We know that the
school’s going to be a con-
struction zone this summer,”
Crane said. “I’m already get-
ting requests for groups to
use the buildings and I’m
having to tell them we can’t
do that this year. There are
athletic events that happen
during the summer, camps
— basketball camps and
things like that — those
kinds of things won’t hap-
pen. They might have to go
to a diff erent high school.
We might talk with Joseph.
I know Wallowa’s got a con-
struction project this sum-
mer because Tammy (Jones,
superintendent at Wallowa)
was in the same boat with
things being requested from
her during the summer. So
I think we would talk with
Joseph. We have a meeting
coming up with those stake-
holders — coaches and such
— to help them plan their
summer. There are teachers
coming in, computer repair,
teachers moving classrooms.
There’s just a lot of plan-
ning to do before summer
comes.”
“It’s going to be an
extended summer,” Hib-
bert said. “We think we’re
going to start on some exte-
rior areas in May of 2022.
We’ll still have a contrac-
tor presence through the fall
to get some work fi nished
up, but we’re going to try
to stay out of the way of the
main educational and athlet-
ics bases but we’re still hav-
ing to fi gure out the details
on that. We know we’ll be
back in the summer of ’23,
we just don’t know how
much money we’re going
to have left. We’ll need the
committee recommendation
on that.”
Crane and Hibbert said
that while McCormack Con-
struction of Pendleton was
selected as the general con-
tractor, numerous bids for
subcontractors are still being
sought.
A subcontractor outreach
meeting was held Jan. 28
where McCormack reached
out to its entire subcontractor
network. Hibbert said about
10 attended the meeting, at
least two of whom were local
to Wallowa County.
“We wanted to make sure
folks in Wallowa County
knew about these projects
and had the chance to bid on
them,” she said. “The whole
point of that outreach meet-
ing was to make sure the
local subcontractor commu-
nity had the chance to ask
questions early and be aware
of the bidding schedule. One
of the district’s priorities is to
keep bond dollars and spend
them locally if they can. We
can’t guarantee that a local
contractor gets part of the
job, but we can give them
every opportunity for them
to know about it in advance
and make sure that they
know of the project and they
can plan for it on their bid-
ding schedule.”
Stretching the funds
As for funding, the district
is doing its best to stretch the
money available.
“We trying to buy as
much as we can within the
budget, but we’re also trying
to stretch that budget and get
additional funds, as well,”
Hibbert said. “Our team
was discussing this morn-
ing Energy Trust of Oregon
incentives and we think that
we’ll be able to get at least
$70,000 in incentives for our
roof project, for energy sav-
ings, for adding insulation.
So, we’re really trying to
look under every stone try-
ing to get the district some
additional money.”
The Energy Trust of Ore-
gon is a nonprofi t organiza-
tion committed to delivering
clean, aff ordable energy to
1.8 million utility customers,
according to its website.
Crane said he’s certain the
school board has no plans for
a supplemental bond levy.
“No, that’s up to the
school board, but it’s never
been on the table and I don’t
think it ever would be,” he
said. “We’re looking for
grants and such.”
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