Via de Luna contractors miss Oct. 10 deadline
BY PAM BRANNON Gulf Breeze News news@gulfbreezenews.com

"I was told in January that this road would be complete by May ... Now it is still not complete, and it is October. Many, many days, \when I have driven down there just to see how progress was going, there have not even been any crews working at all." - Buck Lee Executive Director of Santa Rosa Island Auhority Lee

Via De Luna on Pensacola Beach is under construction - still. If it is not done by Nov. 9, the road construction contractor will be required to pay liquidated damagess.

The road has been under construction for months, and the contract said it would be completed by Oct. 10. The Santa Rosa Island Authority was not pleased when an extension was requested again at their Oct. 10 meeting and gave the construction company 30 days to be done.

Santa Rosa Island Authority Executive Director Buck Lee wanted to start collecting liquidated damages of $500 a day from Roads, Inc. of NWF beginning Nov. 9. In fact, he sent a letter Oct. 9 to the company telling them he was not in favor of the extension they would be requesting at the SRIA meeting and that he believed the contract called for them to begin paying the fine right away.

"I was told in January that this road would be complete by May," Lee reminded the board. "So I had a sign made showing the four lane complete road with the completion date of August, just in case we had rain or something to delay it, and put the sign out for people to see by the road. That was supposed to give them encouragement. Now it is still not complete, and it is October. Many, many days, when I have driven down there just to see how progress was going, there have not even been any crews working at all."

Dave Hemphill of Baskerville Donovan addressed the board asking for an extension until Dec. 13 for the company to complete the road. He also had some work change orders for the board to approve adding up to an additional $29,000.

Hemphill explained to the board that there have been some extra jobs on this project to do while the road was torn up. "As they found underground problems that needed to be fixed, even if it was a Gulf Power problem, work on the road stopped while those were fixed. No sense in tearing up asphalt again in the future to fix some of these things. So that did delay work sometime," Hemphill said.

The board did not agree to the Dec. 13 extension, but did compromise with a Nov. 9 deadline for completion and clean up. If the road is not finished by then, SRIA will collect $500 a day for liquidated damages.