College Drive: Ready for the spring semester?

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — Though work is more than a month behind, University of New Mexico-Gallup staff expects the reconstruction of College Drive to be finished by the end of the week. It will come just in time for the start of the school's second semester classes resume Jan. 17 when students will once again flood the only road leading into and out of the branch campus.

Stan Henderson, the city's public works director, said WW Construction, the Gamerco-based company the City Council awarded the more than $1 million contract to, should finish before the critical deadline if the weather cooperates. Cold weather, he said, can suck the heat out of the asphalt and make it difficult to lay down.

Mike Montao, the branch campus's maintenance supervisor, said he expected WW Construction to finish the road within the next two days, and to wrap up the entire project, which includes placing formerly overhead utility lines underground, by the end of the week.

If he's right, UNM-Gallup students should have an easier and smoother time getting to and from their classes this spring. Even so, it will be more than a month overdue.

As per the contract it signed with the city, WW Construction should have been done by Nov. 30.

Why the delay?

Mike DePauli, whose company, DePauli Engineering and Surveying, is supervising the project for the city, said he's requested an updated work schedule from WW Construction to no avail. A letter from the construction company noted problems with the utility lines, he said, "but that's just an excuse."

Weather should not have been a significant problem either, he said.

Richard Waters, WW Construction's supervisor on the project, declined to comment Monday so as not to risk damaging the company's relationship with the city.

Henderson offered another possibility.

"WW Construction is stretched thin right now," he said, noting some of the company's other current projects, including a new apron in front of the airplane hangers at the Gallup Municipal Airport and work on Interstate 40 just west of town.

DePauli Engineering's Dec. 20 letter to the company rejecting its request for an extension expressed a similar concern.

"We have observed that priority was not given to this project," the letter reads. "Had the proper amount of manpower and equipment been put on this project from the beginning, you would not be in this situation."

Without the extension, the delay will cut into WW Construction's revenues.

"They've been on liquidated damages since November," said City Manager Eric Honeyfield, "$500 a day."

DePauli said the money will be deducted from the total the city originally agreed to pay the company for a timely job.