Palmerton pays another $20K for softball field
Palmerton Area School District’s board of directors approved $20,859 of work to the high school softball field on Tuesday night. District officials said the work is to restore the field to the conditions called for in approved and permitted plans after unauthorized work was done in the spring. TIMES NEWS FILE PHOTO
Work to restore Palmerton Area High School’s softball field to bring it into compliance with permitted plans will cost the district $20,859.
Palmerton’s school board unanimously approved a change order Tuesday night to Penn Builders Inc. for the restoration.
At a building and grounds committee meeting earlier this month, facilities director Joe Faenza told members that the initial field project had yet to be completed, when unauthorized work was done at the site in the spring.
“The approved plans showed drainage channels along the entire right field foul line and left field foul line,” Greg Haas of Carbon Engineering said in April. “Essentially, the district went in on its own and filled in the channels behind home plate and put in a level gravel area. It also regraded an embankment that led to the channels. It could impact the design of stormwater facilities located by the outfield.”
During a board meeting, Earl Paules acknowledged doing the work with a group of volunteers. Paules contended that the grade was not shot correctly, leading to the drainage issues at the site.
Palmerton’s softball team began using the field in April, which the school board acknowledged may not have happened without the unauthorized work.
Director Barry Scherer, in April, said Barry Isett “dropped the ball on the softball field by not directing the subcontractor to get that field finished.”
“It should have never sat there like that,” he said at the time. “If Earl and the volunteers didn’t do that work, we would be sitting there with a dirt trench full of water.”
Paules told Faenza he’d like to get the stone back he used for the work, saying he spent over $1,000.
Faenza said the original plan was for the field to have two growing seasons before the team would begin using it for games.
“We will give weekly updates to the board on the progress of the restoration,” Faenza said Tuesday.
Board members also asked to be notified when work is complete so they could inspect the site in person before signing off on anything.
“We’d like to make sure it was done right,” director Charles Gildner said.
Tank Monitoring System
The board also approved a change order Tuesday to Myco Mechanical for a tank monitoring system for $44,270.
The system is for the 48,000-gallon underground water tank that feeds the fire pump at the junior and senior high complex.
“It gives the ability to monitor tank consumption and serves a couple of purposes,” Faenza said. “One would be to let firefighters know that the tank is getting low and they should get out of the building because they’ll be out of water soon. It can also let us know if there is a leak.”
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