PADRE DAM TERMINATES SANTEE LAKES CONTRACTOR

By Mike Allen

Photo:  David Clarke, owner, Team C Construction

August 21, 2021 (Santee) -- At a June celebration marking the 60^th anniversary of the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, top officials and directors of the agency heaped glowing praise for the new administrative offices, event center and general store at Santee Lakes that was completed in April.

The $9 million project that began before the pandemic in 2019 came in under budget and on schedule. It has become the jewel of the renowned regional park, said Laura Koval, Padre Dam’s director of parks and recreation at the invitation-only event.

But those sentiments changed dramatically after the project was officially granted occupancy and district officials got fed up with their contractor, Team C Construction of El Cajon, and ultimately terminated the relationship Aug. 4.

The action by Padre Dam’s board in a 5-0 vote followed letters to Team C in July to complete a “punch list” of fixes, changes and damages that often accompany every construction project.

Apparently, the fixes didn’t satisfy Padre Dam, and Team C was deemed not in compliance with the contract, and removed. Team C is now attempting to obtain about $900,000 it says the district owes it. The company has retained an attorney to protect its interests.

“They’ve been occupying the buildings for over a year, and took occupancy of the Admin building in June 2020, and now they’re saying this isn’t done right,” said David Clarke, owner of Team C. “They’re trying to renegotiate all these change orders….and they’ve come up with frivolous, fake stuff. And they’re trying to hold $900,000 of our money and our subs’ (subcontractors) money.”

ECM called Koval for comment, but she didn’t return the call. However, in her report to the water board (padredam.org), she said since the project was substantially completed, Team C “constructively abandoned the Project.”

“Numerous punch list items remain incomplete, back charges are being charged to Team C, and many items of defective work have not been appropriately remedied,” Koval wrote in her report.

Koval said subcontractors failed to show up to do scheduled work, showed up unannounced at other times, would do work out of sequence, damaging other completed work.

As part of the board’s action Aug. 4, Padre Dam is obtaining bids to complete the remaining punch list items, and withholding funds owed to Team C.

The water district’s action has caused significant pain to Team C, Clarke said. “They’re trying to screw a small, family-owned business,” he added.

Clarke said when presented with changes to the project,  such as those involving the Tin Fish Restaurant, he asked for architectural design plans so he could hire the appropriate subcontractor, but the district never provided the plans.

“Every aspect of this project has been redesigned. The deck was redesigned, the kitchen was redesigned,” he said.

Clarke said an example of the conflict is a metal door for the General Store that the district claims was incorrectly installed. The door showed “bowing” during times of excess heat, but once the temperatures fell, the metal reverted to its original shape, and there wasn’t any problem. If the district wanted this corrected it should have provided Team C with plans for a different type of door or material, he said.

He pointed out a number of other items such as rusting arm rests on benches, peeling paint on latches, and scratches and stains on the floor to restaurant and General Store. In every construction project, there are always things that need correcting or changed, Clarke said, but the Padre Dam district didn’t seem too interested in working with Team C to fix things.

Instead, the water agency has taken a hard line approach that Clarke said is unfair and unreasonable, especially after the district’s top officials said they were all so happy with the work a few months ago.

At the anniversary party held a couple of months ago, everyone said how beautiful the project turned out, and congratulated Team C, the architects, and construction management firm, Clarke said.

Now the district is saying something totally different, and it’s all because it wants to save money, but at the expense of his small business, Clarke said.

Clarke said he founded the business in 1994, and earlier this year it had 50 employees. Today it has 15.