The Collegian -- Published Sept. 27, 2013

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thecollegian Friday, Sept. 27, 2013 • deltacollegian.net

INSIDE

‘Diamond in the rough’ becomes a G E M by valerie smith news@deltacollegian.net

Setting new records at Delta Page 7

Tattoos: Art or just decoration? Page 2

Connecting through photos Page 5

UPCOMING Mens waterpolo plays Sierra on Oct. 2 at 3:30 p.m.

Stockton Symphony playing at Tillie Lewis on Oct. 4 at 7:30 p.m.

FIND US

A 1959 Nash Metropolitan has been restored as a collective project by the Delta College Automotive departments. Delta’s involvement comes after Auto Body Professor Larry Mariani was approached by the Board of Trustees at the Haggin Museum to participate in the restoration. The now-restored car will be part of the museum’s “Driven to Dream” exhibition will run from Oct. 3 through Jan. 5, 2014. “The Nash, in entirety, was student based, instructors shouldn’t take the credit, it was the students,” said Mariani. Advanced auto students were selected by various professors in the auto departments to participate. The project took a year to finish. “It took one year exactly, not counting the summer break,” said Mariani, “A little under 10 months.” In the Auto Body department there were various groups of students who started the car, and moved on to graduation. Cody Rose and Seth Gruebele, both current Delta students, saw the project from beginning to end. “I think it was fun learning everything, seeing it all rusty and old to the way it is now,” said Rose. The vintage vehicle was the most in-depth project Mariani has seen the students take on. “This is all about the students get a sense of persistence, how long it takes for a full restoration, but once they see the end

product and the light at the end of the tunnel they think:‘Hey, I can do this,’” said Mariani. There were hurdles Mariani and the students faced along the way, but the car went from diamond in the rough to a gem. “What happened was everything that could go wrong went wrong, so it was a lot of setbacks,” said Gruebele. The bodywork done by the students include: priming, block sanding, main paint, bodywork and buffing among other tasks. Other auto body departments handled electric and automotive tasks. Gruebele and Rose both plan on either owning their own shop or getting a job in the auto body department somewhere down the line. “I felt pretty accomplished I stayed through the whole process,” said Gruebele. Mariani said he hopes to get all the auto departments together for another possible project, perhaps an eco-friendly car. If the departments agree, it would be totally electric, run on solar power and painted with water-paint. “It’s good to intermingle auto students with different disciplines,” said Mariani. The Nash will remain on display at the Haggin Museum until its raffle on Dec. 19. Raffle tickets are $25 each. Five can be purchased for $100. Tickets are available at the museum, located at 1201 N. Pershing Ave. in Stockton.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JIM VERGARA

RESTORING A CLASSIC: Students in the automotive program transformed a Nash Metropolitan from a rust bucket to a working car, now up for raffle at the Haggin Museum in Stockton.

Delays in building construction leads to lawsuit by kenneth huntley news@deltacollegian.net

Taisei Construction Corporation, the construction company building the Cunningham Math and Science replacement center, filed a civil lawsuit for $25,190,349 in June against Delta College and Kitchell Corporation. Taisei Construction alleges that because the company had no prior knowledge of a specialty HVAC system, a specialist had to be hired. The claim is that the original plans contained records of only a basic HVAC sys-

tem, not a system created by a company called Aircuity. According to Taisei Construction’s complaint, an Aircuity HVAC system requires special training and experience to install. Taisei, believing that the install was a simple HVAC, hired a subcontractor with only that knowledge, the lawsuit said. Taisei alleges that Delta and Kitchell withheld critical construction information causing slowdowns and stopping construction to await the architect or engineers’ completion of specs. Non-buildable designs also caused Taisei

to replace and rebuild parts of the project. At times, specs of the project were uncoordinated and conflicting, the lawsuit alleges. The civil lawsuit filed by Taisei is for compensation of lost money, time, manpower and property. Taisei filed a similar civil lawsuit in the Superior Court of Santa Clara County against Palo Alto Unified School District. According to a news blog put out by the Palo Alto school district, “Taisei Construction Company filed a law suit concerning

see LAWSUIT on PAGE 8


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