Despite disappointments, Bremerton High School track project nearly complete

The $650,000 track and field facility improvement at Bremerton High School’s Memorial Stadium is nearly complete.

The new track surface is waiting to be painted, the running lanes have been widened and new drains have been planted to keep rain from turning the field into a swamp.

“We’re going to have some of the nicest facilities in the area,” said Wayne Lindberg, director of finance and operations.

The track’s surface will be repainted and ready for use before Aug. 1, said Ron Carpenter, director of buildings and grounds maintenance and manager of the project.

But the project’s planning and execution has been criticized by some, especially those familiar with track and field. They believe the project was botched, both in planning and execution.

Lloyd Pugh, track and field coach at Bremerton, said he was never consulted about the project until the fall of 2009, after it began and mistakes had already been made.

He has coached the sport for four decades and believes he could have offered guidance and input.

“You don’t go and remodel somebody’s kitchen without knowing what cupboards they want,” Pugh said.

In 2005, voters passed a $30.5 million bond that set aside $150,000 to resurface the track, originally installed in the mid-1980s and resurfaced in the mid-90s.

But when Lindberg and Carpenter took control of the project in 2007, the estimated costs had soared to $850,000, coming from what Lindberg called “add-ons,” upgrades he said weren’t in the original plans.

Since there wasn’t enough money in the district’s construction budget to complete the project for Lindberg cut the project down to $650,000.

When ground was broke in June 2009, the track was closed to the public as contractors worked on the major renovations, including the add-ons – installing a new drainage system, widening each lane from 40 inches to the state-standard 42, relocating the shot-put area and laying a new launch pad for the pole vault, among others.

Although some of the work was completed without error, problems began to emerge near the end of last summer as the 2009-10 school year approached and the weather took a turn.

The outside edge of the outermost lane – Lane 8 – was discovered to be at least 2 inches shy of the target 42 inches.

Henderson Partners LLC, based out of Gig Harbor and the lead contractor for the project, argued the outside lane was too narrow because the existing foundation, on which the old track was built, was too small to support the new track.

The new track should have been 16 inches wider than the existing one – eight lanes being widened by 2 inches each. There also were lumps in portions of the new track, which according to Henderson happened because the track was built on the old, uneven foundation.

Henderson claims it followed the plans it was given.

“When the (existing) track was cleared, there was no asphalt there,” Henderson’s John Wall said in November. “You can’t build a house on a foundation that’s not correct, that’s the best analogy I can draw.”

Wall did not return calls this week seeking comment.

With the beginning of the fall sports season looming – both the football and girls soccer teams use the field for practices and games – the district chose to put the project on hold.

“We had weather windows where it wasn’t dry,” Carpenter said.

Then, in late November, the Bremerton School Board approved a $172,000 payment to Henderson because it was legally obligated to pay.

With the project partially complete, the Bremerton track and field team competed on the road in every meet except one during the spring 2010 season.

Pugh said he made that decision.

“You wouldn’t play a football game on a 90-yard field,” he said. “The facility was second-class. I wouldn’t subject another team to that if I didn’t have to.”

On Tuesday, Pugh said he had yet to visit the track since the season ended so he couldn’t comment on the final product.

But Lane Dowell, a longtime track and field official and Bremerton resident, visited the facility a week ago.

He said the new shot put ring is adequate, but that the pole vault and javelin runways could still be better.

Like Pugh, Dowell was never consulted during the preliminary stages of the project, despite the fact he was invited to Mount Tahoma High School as a consultant when the Tacoma school renovated its track a few years ago.

“It’s a real mystery,” he said.

Carpenter, the project manager, expects the new track surface to last between 10 and 15 years. And although he acknowledged in hindsight that some of the decisions could have been better, he believes the project turned out well.

“This is the best we can do with the space we have in an existing stadium,” Carpenter said. “We tried.”

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