Pine Haven council loses patience

It’s been two years since Pine Haven’s new pump and well were installed and initiated. Since then, the pump has not performed correctly and the contractor has been unable to make the pump work without “tripping” an error code within the computerized program and failing operation.

The council has become ever-more-frustrated with perceived DRM’s lack of attention to this ongoing issue. HDR Engineering’s Heath Turbiville, who has been in intermittent contact with the contractor, reported at last Tuesday’s meeting, “The last email I had was from Friday, I believe. Now, we’re back to their not being responsive.”

Upon hearing of the company’s unresponsiveness to the engineer’s entreaties, Mayor John Cook told Turbiville to inform DRM of the town’s intent to involve legal representation if action is not taken within the next week finally deal appropriately with this issue, saying, “You should tell them that we either get responses or we’re going to get Pat [Carpenter, town attorney] involved.”

Turbiville assured the governing body that this warranty issue will be covered even after the conclusion of the warranty. However, the council explained the actual point.

“Every time that well sets and doesn’t reset, we get issues from people that there’s color so it’s obviously not good,” Councilwoman Karla Brandenburg stated.

Added to this, Brandenburg noted the extra time Public Works Director Sunny Schell has to give to trying to work around these continued rotation and reset failures, costing the town more in wage.

“We’re incredibly frustrated,” Cook also responded, “[and that’s] a nice way of saying it. I’m sure you are too because you’re not getting any more cooperation than we are from these people and if we have to take legal recourse, we just going to have to take legal recourse.”