Contracts for the construction projects at Warsaw Community High School were approved Monday by the Warsaw School Board.

For the base bids and the alternates that were accepted, the total cost was $25,320,294.

Bids were received from 98 companies and accepted from 22, said Steve Bluhm, the project manager from Construction Control Inc.

Only three alternate options were accepted, all for the sports complex: visitor bleachers for $228,501, and bleacher walking surfaces for the base bid bleachers ($14,910) and for the visitor bleachers ($6,769).

Alternate options not included in this construction project but to be added later and paid for through the Capital Projects Fund were a guidance office area and large group instruction room ($323,251), soccer and tennis locker/service building ($872,185) and visitor restroom building ($429,424).

Alternates not accepted included a ticket booth ($39,762), football storage building ($74,965), risers in the choral and black box theater ($82,102), freezer/cooler units/storage for the kitchen ($102,092) and unit pavers ($118,700).

Bluhm said a preconstruction meeting is scheduled for March 23 to discuss scheduling. The goal is for the entire project to be finished by spring/summer 2006.

He also said one of the factors pushing up the prices for this project is the cost of steel and copper, which affects construction and wiring costs.

"China is consuming 20 percent of the world's steel now," he said, "so we're not getting cheap import steel that would subsidize public works projects."

Board member Larry Chamberlain made a motion to accept the bids, and the motion was seconded by Mark Minatel.

Gene England, board member from Silver Lake, said he would vote in favor of the project because it already was approved, but that he "thinks the money should have been spent on two elementaries and then this project should have been approved afterwards. So I will vote on it with a little bit of reluctance."

Ron Yeiter, board member from Atwood, said the project included several million dollars encumbered from the Capital Projects Fund, and asked what would happen if that money was needed in the future.

Rande Thorpe, WCS business manager, said, "Starting in 1997, there were dollars set aside for this project. This project has taken a long time to get rolling, but this was set aside for this project."

Thorpe said $1,666,258 was set aside from previous CPFs.

Yeiter was the lone vote against awarding the contracts.

Later in the meeting, Yeiter presented his figures for school enrollment projections after Atwood, Claypool and Silver Lake schools are closed and the students from those schools moved into existing schools.

In the past, Harrison Elementary had the most students, and is the only school to be unaffected by the closings.

"If you look at the numbers, Harrison's going to be the safest number we've got," Yeiter said. "It appears that except for art and music, every available resource room is being used to accommodate children. ... I don't know how we can say no transfers to Harrison. ... Washington scares me to death. If you base it on prime time figures, Washington is more than 40 percent over capacity. I see some major, major problems coming up."

The numbers for capacity, said superintendent Dr. Dave McGuire, "were based on assumptions for room usage and those assumptions have been changed. ... The principals assure me that it will fit and that's what I've presented to the board."

"I think the principals are doing the best they can with what they're given," Yeiter said, adding that he thinks the principals are concerned with job security.

"I resent the idea that people could be fired because they don't agree with me," McGuire said.

"A lot of people out there aren't talking and there's gotta be a reason for that," Yeiter said. [[In-content Ad]]