School 18

My question regarding school 18 and the houses on Bertha Street revolves around some dissatisfaction that a very good neighbor was asked to move and more than a year went by and nothing much had been done. I was told that last year in the summer the houses would be removed. It did not happen. So my question was not "would the houses be removed?" but "when will the houses be removed?". The last announced timetable that I was aware of was not effective and I wanted to know if there was a new one.

As it turned out I wound up calling Shawn Hamlin, the Senior Architect on the project for the School District. I spoke to him on Monday the 18th. He said the jobs to do the work on school 18 have been bid, and the bids are in, and a contract has been awarded to Sam Greco company as the general contractor. The school district is looking to schedule another neighborhood meeting through the school 18 principal where all the details of the construction wil be discussed. These will be details such as construction fencing, how construction traffic will be routed, expected duration of the project, etc. He said "I can't sugar coat this for you. Your life will be miserable for a while" with construction dust and noise. He did say there were no piles to drive so those of us around the site will be spared that at least. So the construction work is expected to start this July or August of 2005.

I think this is the kind of report I would have liked to have had about the houses.