Riff Raff: A strange report

“This seems strange …” That’s how a rep with Turn Key construction began a sentence about his thoughts on a report attempting to reveal the causes of flooding at the Fort Smith Public School District’s Peak Innovation Center.

Deerfield, Ill.-based Envista Forensics was hired by the Fort Smith School Board to figure out why the Peak facility – a $20.3 million facility that is a unique gem in the school district’s portfolio of impressive educational assets – has an ongoing flooding problem.

There was some hope among those involved in the Peak construction and those truly interested in an honest landing on lessons learned that the Envista effort would be independent – as promised by the school board – and thorough. It needed to be trusted, revelatory, and, you know, forensically assuring.

The report presented to the board on March 26 was none of those things. Strange, indeed. And unfortunate.

The principal failing of the report was that the only primary actor in the Peak project from which information and documents were sought was the school district. That’s like being tasked to investigate a serious plane malfunction and not getting info from the black box, recent maintenance logs, talking to air traffic controllers, the pilots and maybe even the passengers.

Talk Business & Politics asked the Envista investigator if documents from owner-architect-contractor (OAC) meetings during the project were reviewed for the report.

“The investigation reviewed known executed documents used for the construction process, so OAC meeting notes were not reviewed because they do not include construction directives,” was the response.

Strange. Again, if you’re gonna investigate that plane problem, you’ll probably want more than just the plans used on the manufacturing floor.

There were more than 70 OAC meetings during Peak construction, with many of those including meeting notes, pre-meeting emails, and post-meeting emails. It’s equal parts puzzling and stunning that a wealth of info from those meetings was not incorporated into the final report. In his report to the board, the Envista presenter said, “There appears to be major communication problems.”

Exactly. Except the problem is the report failed to capture major communication between all parties during construction.

Fortunately, the board is asking for more info. A letter was sent April 2 by the district to professional service firms – contractors, architects, engineers, etc. – involved in Peak construction seeking their input. They have until April 15 to respond with documents they believe will provide more clarity for the report – a report that probably should have included their informed context and hands-on experience before time was wasted at the March 26 school board meeting.

School Board President Dalton Person noted after the March 26 board meeting that the investigation may never include an easy answer.

“It was unrealistic for me or anyone else to expect a simple answer here. I just don’t think a simple answer exists,” he said.

Maybe not. But I’ve had a gander at some of the OAC documents. Talk Business & Politics has talked to folks involved in the Peak work. Heck, we’ve reported on some head-scratching stuff.

A simple answer may not be part of the final product, but a report that objectively and thoroughly incorporates OAC-related documents will narrow down the responsibility – which may be uncomfortable for some. It also will do much to generate public confidence that the school board is truly interested in not only figuring out what went wrong, but how to avoid such issues on future projects.

I’m willing to bet the info added from professional service firms will move the dial a few pegs from “not simple” to uncomfortable. And uncomfortable is a lot better than strange.