Noise, fumes aren’t welcome neighbors
Construction disruption as Oakland school rebuild drags on
For months, Sandra Montgomery has watched from her backyard in Oakland as construction workers demolish and rebuild Glenview Elementary School. Close to “ground zero,” her house is consistently enveloped by a cloud of dust from construction.
Montgomery, who works from home as an accountant, has learned to adjust to the constant drilling and the clouds that hang over her neighborhood. But she’s not adjusting willingly. She’s been forced to after the Oakland Unified School District largely ignored her neighborhood’s grievances about the extended impact of the project, which has escaped scrutiny, she said.
“They talk a good talk,” Montgomery said, referencing the school district. “It’s just all talk. They stall and defer, hoping the problems are going to go away. You really can’t trust what they say. They are lying to us.”
Such criticism is just a snapshot of the dysfunctional relationship between Oakland Unified, neighbors of Glenview Elementary and contractors since construction began in 2017. The district was forced to address seismic concerns at Glenview, and instead of remodeling the current structure, officials opted to rebuild. Since then the district has dealt with over-
spending and delays in building, as well as seeing two of its contractors indicted in an unrelated bid-rigging scandal. That case ended in one being found not guilty and a mistrial for the other.
The project to rebuild Glenview Elementary is now slated to finish more than a year late and nearly $20 million over budget.
Montgomery, who has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years, said the neighbors’ complaints — ranging from gripes about noise to concerns about dust and air quality — haven’t been addressed. Most recently, a tar odor permeated the neighborhood. That was a breaking point for many residents.
“I have double-paned windows, and it’s still bad,” Montgomery said. “And the dust and the dirt, and the smell — it’s pretty bad.”
In response, the district hired an air monitoring company to oversee the remainder of the project, even though the tarring of the school’s roof is done, said John Sasaki, a spokesman for Oakland Unified School District.
“A little too late,” Montgomery said.
The district said it has helped contractors shorten the time spent on roofing work by hiring additional workers, while also adjusting the location of the asphalt kettle, which is responsible for the fumes. The kettle work lasted Nov. 20 through Jan. 25.
Crews also used other techniques to complete the roof ’s overhangs and awnings after complaints about fumes.
For many residents, it wasn’t enough.
Resident Eric Matsuno, who shares a fence with the construction project, said the odor was debilitating and that his numerous requests for an air quality report from the school district went ignored. Like Montgomery, he called his home “ground zero” to the project. His 16-yearold daughter’s bedroom overlooks the construction site.
“My daughter has been sick for the entire time that this roofing has begun, with respiratory issues,” Matsuno said. “She is missing school. The neighborhood is really suffering.”
Residents have lodged three formal complaints since Dec. 17 with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, but there were no findings that basic procedures weren’t followed, the agency said. The fumes that neighbors are complaining about aren’t toxic, officials said, but they can lead to nausea, fatigue and dizziness.
The material used at the site is “commonly used around the Bay Area on large roofing projects,” said Ralph Borrmann, an agency spokesman. “They heat asphalt in a ground-level hopper and pump it on a roof where it’s spread out. It’s done on many large buildings with lots of roofing service, so it’s not unusual.”
The district hired the consulting company ACC Environmental to install air quality monitors for the remainder of the project. As of Friday, ACC had started air sampling in response to the complaints about tar odor, officials said.
In addition to taking air samples, the agency will review approved contractor proposals and prepare an “air-monitoring plan” based on the proposals, according to the district.
“We understand this concern, and we are doing everything we can to mitigate,” Sasaki said.
The project is replacing 21 classrooms and the library, cafeteria and administrative offices, according to the project’s website. Work is supposed to be completed in December — more than a year after its expected completion date — and doors will open to students in August 2020, Sasaki said. This will provide staff a reasonable time frame to set up classrooms, he added.
But the construction delays have resulted in additional costs to taxpayers.
The school’s 440 students have been attending an unused facility on the Emeryville border, and the tab for students to be bused to and from the school may reach close to $2 million before the new campus is completed.
The project is being funded by a part of $475 million bond measure that city voters approved in 2012, with the understanding that the work would cost $43 million. Since the measure passed, though, the project’s costs have steadily increased. The current budget has risen to $58.8 million from $54 million in 2017.
The budget increase allows the district to “fully fund contracts approved in 2017,” officials said. They did not elaborate on potential cost overruns.
Remaining work includes more roofing, framing, exterior walls, applying stucco, waterproofing, electrical power and lighting. Contractors also still have to do paving, install the heating and ventilation systems, install windows, do interior work, and more.
In 2017, The Chronicle reported on federal charges against Turner Group Construction, one of three general contractors working on the school’s rebuild.
A federal grand jury indicted company owners Len Turner and Lance Turner in April 2017 on charges of conspiring to defraud the federal government. The charges were connected to the renovation of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Lance Turner was found not guilty, and a mistrial was declared in the case of Len Turner when the same jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict.
Turner Group Construction’s contract with Oakland Unified, which required the company to provide staffing for construction management, ended Jan. 30.