18A» NEWS
monday, february 13, 2012 B denverpost.com B the denver post
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GREECE: One in five
civil jobs to be cut; minimum wage falls « FROM 1A
The Neenan-built Granby medical center was reviewed by an outside firm for structural problems. The most serious concerns discovered were two overstressed columns in the building, which Neenan paid to fix. Photos by Joe Amon, The Denver Post
NEENAN: Firm stands by its buildings
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FROM 1A
Officials with the state Department of Public Health and Environment say they took the unusual step of requesting an outside review in mid-December because the engineer of record, Gary Howell , also worked on Neenan-designed and -built schools found to have structural defects. Despite the outside review’s alarming language, a local building official and a structural engineer with no connection to the Granby project described the column issue as relatively minor. Still, scrutiny from another state agency and the hasty repairs pose another challenge for Fort Collins-based Neenan, which is standing behind its work and reviewing dozens of building designs as it seeks to restore an image tarnished by its school-construction problems. The design-build firm says it has completed health-care buildings totaling more than 2 million square feet in the past 20 years, including at least eight projects in Colorado. Kremmling Memorial spokesman Eric Murray declined to make district chief executive Bill Widener available for an interview. “It’s remedied. It’s done,” Murray said. “There is nothing to talk about, that’s all. We have been deemed absolutely safe.” The Granby project is the result of a more than decade-old effort to expand health care for Grand County’s 15,000 residents. The hospital district financed it with between $23 million and $24 million in revenue bonds and $1.5 million in state grants. At a Nov. 12, 2010, groundbreaking, hospital-district board president Kent Whitmer called it “a total win-win.” A little more than a year later, Robert Sontag, life-safety code manager with the state health department, contacted the district’s project manager to ask
questions about the structural engineering. Department officials had been following a series of Denver Post articles and noticed that Howell, the project engineer, had designed a Meeker school that had serious flaws, Sontag said. Sontag said the owner’s representative, Todd Ficken, explained that he already had made changes to design assumptions after discovering issues that bore similarities to those in Neenan schools. Sontag said he pressed for a full outside review. “We said as long as there is an arm’s-length review ... and the local building department is willing to sign off on it, then we can move forward,” Sontag said. Andy Boian, a spokesman for Neenan, said a review already had been scheduled because all of Howell’s work at Neenan is being scrutinized. Boian declined to say how many other health-care projects Howell had engineered. Howell was hired in late 2007 and fired in November after state regulators opened an investigation into his work. On Dec. 28, Denver structural engineer Martino & Luth delivered its findings. Most items
were minor, but the most serious concerns centered on two columns the review found were overstressed by 8 percent and 12 percent, respectively. “We are classifying this structural issue as major and it should be remedied as soon as possible,” it said. Howell disagrees with some aspects of the review and described the suggested fixes as very minor, said the engineer’s lawyer, Bryan Kuhn. Harold Howland, building official with the town of Winter Park, which oversees construction in Granby, said his department did not find problems with the columns. “Some engineers are more conservative than others and over-engineer things,” he said. “I don’t think the building was ever in trouble at all.” Bob Hunnes, past president of the Structural Engineers Association of Colorado, said it’s reasonable to call the repair a minor reinforcement. “These are really minor issues in the context of the larger design deficiencies that have been reported on other Neenan projects,” he said. Neither the hospital district nor Neenan, however, challenged the findings. Neenan
Dr. Meghan Mont looks at Julie Broady at the Granby medical center last week. Some experts disagree on whether the issue found at the facility was a “major” structural problem.
agreed to pay for the fixes. The health department did not require the review as a condition for licensure or require repairs before the grand opening Jan. 1, said Nancy McDonald, director of the Health Facilities and Emergency Medical Services Division. She said local building officials and the third-party engineer had declared the building safe, and the repair timeline was “rigorous.” By then, the building already had passed the department’s health code and life-safety inspections, which cover items such as corridor width and fire alarms. The health department’s duties include plan review. But McDonald said that would not have caught the issues flagged in the third-party review. “We authenticate that a licensed engineer has signed off on design calculations and assumptions, but we don’t repeat the work,” she said. The repair job, which included installing steel plates, wrapped up in about 10 days, Boian said. He said it never snowed, so the snow-removal plan was never put into action. After the columns were strengthened, another engineering firm was brought in to inspect the fix — all on Neenan’s dime. In a Dec. 21 letter, Neenan president Randy Myers assured Widener the company “has weathered much tougher financial situations.” He repeated the message he has shared with clients across Colorado and the country: Neenan is taking responsibility for its mistakes and taking steps to prevent future ones. Myers wrote: “It it gratifying to see that so many of our clients, partners and fellow community members recognize that we are working hard to be accountable and transparent during these difficult times.” Eric Gorski: 303-954-1971, egorski@denverpost.com
were damaged by fire, police said. Sunday’s clashes erupted after more than 100,000 protesters marched to the parliament to rally against the drastic cuts, which will ax one in five civil-service jobs and slash the minimum wage by more than a fifth. At least 45 businesses were damaged by fire, including several historic buildings, movie theaters, banks and a cafeteria, in the worst riot damage in Athens in years. Fifty police officers were injured, and at least 70 protesters were hospitalized. Sixtyseven suspected rioters were arrested and another 70 detained. Prime Minister Lucas Papademos urged calm. “Vandalism and destruction have no place in a democracy and will not be tolerated,” Papademos told Parliament just before the vote. Since May 2010, Greece has survived on a $145 billion bailout from its European partners and the International Monetary Fund. When that proved insufficient, the new rescue package was approved. The deal, which has not yet been finalized, will be combined with a massive bondswap deal to write off half the country’s privately held debt. But for both deals to materialize, Greece had to convince its deeply skeptical creditors that it has the will to implement spending cuts and public-sector reforms that will end years of fiscal excess and tame gaping budget deficits. As protests raged Sunday, demonstrators set bonfires in front of parliament, and dozens of riot police formed lines to keep them from making a run on the building. Security forces fired dozens of tear-gas volleys at rioters, who attacked them with firebombs and chunks of marble broken off the fronts of luxury hotels, banks and department stores. Clouds of tear gas drifted across the square, and many in the crowd wore gas masks or had their faces covered, while others carried Greek flags and banners. Masked rioters also attacked a police station with gasoline bombs and stones.
Today’s Notices Gassman, Phyllis L. Graham, Mary C.
Horan Archdiocese
GASSMAN ASSMAN, PHYLLIS L., 85, of Denver. Preceded in death by her husband Fritz Gassman. Mother of Greg (Lisa) Gassman. Grandmother of Chris, Matt & Trisha. Rosary Monday 7pm, Horan & McConaty Family Chapel, 3101 S. Wadsworth Blvd. Funeral Mass Tuesday 10am, Notre Dame Catholic Church, 2190 S. Sheridan Blvd. Interment, Mount Olivet Cemetery. Please share condolences at HoranCares.com.
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MURPHY: Police turn up no leads in theft of crawler Vern Thornton died in Illinois four years ago at age 73 when a tractor (not the Case) rolled over on him. He left the Case to Steve, now 55, in his will. It took a couple of years before Thornton put together the money and the time to fetch the loader from Thornton Heights. He and a son took a truck there, hitched up the 10,000-pound machine and trailer and started the drive back. It was not as easy as it sounds. “We had quite a whiteknuckle trip back,” Thornton said. “Peeled the tread off the trailer tires at one point. Had to stop a couple of times.” But they made it, and Thornton finally got his turn at the controls. “I drove it off the trailer at
the house and drove it around there just a very, very little before the city said, ‘Uh-uh, you can’t do that in your neighborhood,’ ” Thornton said. “So I drove it back on the trailer, and that was it.” The Case needed work — and he needed a nonresidential spot to park it — so Thornton took the machine to a hose-repair company where a friend works in the 5100 block of East 48th Avenue. It never really occurred to him that someone might steal it, so he left it on the trailer. For a year, there it sat. Until New Year’s Day. That day, the crawler, and the trailer, disappeared. Denver Police Lt. Matt Murray said the investigation has turned up no leads. A second dozer was taken at about the same time from the same part of the city, but it was abandoned in Adams County a
short time later and is not thought related. “The investigation is now considered inactive,” Murray said. “We don’t have any information on it.” Thornton works in the upholstery shop at the Regional Transportation District’s facility off 31st Street in Denver. He wears a work shirt with his father’s name above the pocket and sews new covers for the seats on buses and light-rail cars — a skill he learned from his grandmother back in Illinois. Thornton has passed out fliers throughout RTD with photos of the loader. “I’m just hoping that maybe one of the drivers will see it while they are out,” Thornton said. So far, nothing. He had hoped to clean the Case up and eventually use it to develop a little property on his own after he retires from
RTD in a few years. But after he was first offered $6,000 and then $12,000 for it and turned the money down, he realized he really just wanted to keep the loader around, even if he never used it. Thornton mostly blames himself for the loss. “If I had just taken it off the trailer, it would never have gone anywhere,” he said. And if he got a chance to say one thing to the thief, it would be: “I’d sure love to have it back. I don’t think I can replace it in any way.” If you have information on the missing crawler loader, please call Denver police at 720-9137867.
2 Plots Chapel Hill Masonic Gardens. Make an offer. (303)795-9877 2 Plots, loc. Olinger Chapel Hill, loc S. Colo. Blvd. Value $3995 ea. Sell 2 for $7000 + transfer fee. 303-470-6617. 2 PRIME LOTS IN CROWN HILL CEMETARY. Make offer. (719)372-9315 CROWN HILL 2 side x side plots, loc on front row near Wadsworth & office, blk 3, lot 25, sec. 3 & 4. $1700 ea. or both for $3000. (720)220-1140 Crown Hill, Block 69, Lot 69, Unit A, Section 1. $4450/ obo. 970-213-2081 Zion at Chapel Hill Cemetery Lot 25C, Spaces 3 & 4. $7500 (303)472-1615
Golden Cemetery, 4 plots, City section, blk 93, lot 4. $1000 ea. Buyer pays Perpetual care fee. (970)484-0031 Highland Cemetaries, Garden of Atonement, 2 side x side plots w/1 vault, selling for $4500. Will pay transfer fee. Call Ann, 303-534-5100 OLINGER CHAPEL HILL MEMORIAL GARDENS 2 side-byside, lot #365-A #3 &#4, Garden of the Masonic, Littleton, Co. $3595/ea (928)474-2584 Sunset Memorial Gardens in Greeley, 4 lots, lot #343, sect. B, Christus Gardens, can be sold group of 2 or 4, $500 per lot. Call (303) 600-8778 after 4pm.
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Chuck Murphy: 303-954-1829, cmurphy@denverpost.com, Twitter.com/cmurphydenpost or Facebook.com/cmurphydenpost
GRAHAM RAHAM, MARY C.,90, of Denver. Wife of the late Gene Graham. Mother of John (Margaret) Graham, Mark (Nobuko) Graham, Chris (Tim) Henry and Gloria (Jim) Wright. Sister of Mike Smaldone. Grandmother of Paul, David, Erin, Colin, Stephen, Ben, Julie, Vincent and Crystal. Also survived by twelve great-grandchildren. Recitation of the Rosary Monday, 7:00 PM., at the Archdiocese of Denver Mortuary. Mass of Christian Burial Tuesday, 10:00 AM., at Shrine of St. Anne Catholic Church (58th & Webster Sts.) Arvada. Entombment, Mount Olivet Cemetery.
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OBITUARY INFORMATION
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08384866
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A three-story building was consumed by flames as firefighters struggled to douse the blaze. Streets were strewn with stones, smashed glass and burnt wreckage, while terrified passers-by sought refuge in hotel lounges and cafeterias. Scores of bat-wielding youths smashed property at will for several hours, leaving broken traffic lights hanging from poles, and chairs and tables from looted coffee shops dumped on the street. Ambulances weaved through narrow backstreets to ferry the injured to hospitals, dodging burning trash bins and the running battles between rioters and police. “I’ve had it! I can’t take it anymore. There’s no point in living in this country anymore,” said a distraught shop owner walking through his smashed and looted optician store. Athens Mayor Giorgos Kaminis said rioters tried to storm the city-hall building but were repelled. “Once again, the city is being used as a lever to try to destabilize the country,” he said. In parliament, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said the new austerity measures were vital to the country’s economic survival. “The question is not whether some salaries and pensions will be curtailed but whether we will be able to pay even these reduced wages and pensions,” he told lawmakers before the vote. “When you have to choose between bad and worse, you will pick what is bad to avoid what is worse.” The new cutbacks, which follow two years of harsh income losses and tax hikes amid a deep recession and record-high unemployment, have been demanded by Greece’s bailout creditors in return for a new batch of vital rescue loans. Greece’s eurozone partners, meanwhile, kept up the pressure for real reform. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was quoted as telling the Welt am Sonntag newspaper Sunday that Greece “cannot be a bottomless pit.”
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