Tisbury selectmen read the riot act on Tuesday night to the company building the town’s new $7.4 million emergency services building on, citing a long list of faults which have delayed the project.

The building was due to be finished before the summer. Now it is unlikely to be operational until well into fall. The general contractor for the project, Seaver Constructions, removed the project manager of the site several weeks ago and is still in the process of installing a permanent replacement.

The barrage began after the chairman of the emergency services building committee, Joe Tierney, told selectmen the town needed to engage a “building envelope consultant” to assess any possible damage caused by the fact that one year into the project, the building still was not watertight.

There was concern the persistent leaks had caused damage to building materials inside the structure.

Selectman Jeff Kristal then opened up on Ken DellaCroce, vice president of operations for the contractor, Seaver Construction, who attended the selectmen’s meeting, about the faults and the company’s slowness to react to expressions of concern by the town.

“You guys are not responding to us,” said Mr. Kristal.

“You guys need to get on the ball. We’ve spent a lot of money on this and we don’t want a second-grade project. We certainly don’t want a second-grade project manager up there running the project, okay?”

A second board member Tristan Israel, said the list of faults, which began with an uneven floor last December, now ran to some 70 items.

“There’s a door down there, the main door, that doesn’t fit,” he said.

“I’ve been shown metal columns that had filled with water and were bowed. We have water leaking into the building because the sides aren’t finished.”

The chairman of the board, Geoghan Coogan, said the sight was a “mess unkempt, unsafe and unprofessional.”

Mr. Dellacourt admitted there were problems that should have been addressed and had not been. That was why the former project manager had been removed.

The company was still trying to fins solutions to “prevent the rain from coming in” after previous attempts at a fix had failed.

“We’re going to finish it right,” Mr. DellaCroce said.

 

More on the story in Friday’s print edition of the Vineyard Gazette.