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AASD’s Hoover: Firm ‘muddied waters’

Board member questions how McKissick Associates reached out to Kreuz

Something seemed odd to Altoona Area School Board member Rick Hoover about how a camp of newly-elected board members maneuvered to pull the rug out from under the ongoing high school building project and bring in a different architectural firm, McKissick Associates, to give alternatives.

He got answers to his questions Wednesday during a special meeting to approve McKissick for a presentation.

“I got my answer,” Hoover said. “McKissick reached out to a board member who was newly elected.”

It was revealed Wednesday that a McKissick representative called Ed Kreuz after the November election.

Kreuz then contacted Dave Francis and Kelly Irwin Adams, and all three met with a McKissick representative at the Blairmont Club after the November election.

McKissick Associates Architects had previously worked with the district, and architect Rick Karcher made several attempts to convince the board in 2016 to choose his firm instead of KCBA for the high school project.

Hoover questioned his fellow board members during the Wednesday meeting about their contact with the firm. He started with Francis, who made the motion Jan. 8 to allow McKissick Associates to present its plans to the board free of charge.

Francis, Kreuz, Irwin Adams as well as long-standing board members Sharon Bream and Ron Johnston passed the motion.

It blindsided four board members who favored the original building plan that was the culmination of work done by KCBA Architects since November 2015.

“Who did McKissick contact?” Hoover asked.

Francis said he didn’t know. Irwin-Adams looked at Kreuz and said, “I guess Ed.”

Hoover stressed his question that McKissick contacted new members.

“Yes,” Kreuz said. “I think they called me, emailed me, called me.”

Hoover’s next question was whether any board member had any relationship with any members of McKissick.

“You asked me that last time,” Francis said. “In my previous years on the board, I was involved with various building projects. I know a person who is there. He is not a friend; he is an acquaintance. … So to be honest, yeah, but he’s not a friend.”

Hoover again zeroed in on who McKissick contacted to set up the meeting originally.

“I just want to get on the record. My question is who on this board did McKissick reach out to?”

Kreuz raised his hand.

“Me,” Kreuz said again.

Kreuz campaigned on stopping the $88 million building project and seeking lower cost alternatives.

“And how did they contact you?” Hoover asked.

Kreuz, seated next to Hoover, kept his eyes down as Hoover looked at him.

“Telephone, I guess,” Kreuz responded.

Hoover didn’t accept that.

“No, you need to tell me how they contacted you,” Hoover said.

Kreuz put his hands up and shrugged.

“Sure, telephone,” Kreuz said.

Hoover asked whether Kreuz then contacted the other two board members.

Kreuz said yes.

“I think that is important to have on the record,” Hoover said. “Because now I hear this company is going to come in and give us a free bid.”

Francis interrupted — “so are other companies.”

However, other companies were not included in his original motion. That was a suggestion by Irwin Adams during board discussion after Francis made his motion Jan. 8.

“Did any other companies reach out to board members personally?” Hoover asked.

“No,” Francis said.

Hoover said, “That’s what I want to know because you know what people hate about local politics? It’s whenever people reach out to people on the board. They reach out individually, and that helps muddy the water a little.”

Kreuz made no further comment that night and did not respond to two phone calls from the Mirror to comment about why McKissick called him specifically.

Francis defended their discussion with McKissick.

“We were offered the opportunity to look at other options,” he said. “We would be remiss to not look at different options. I want to know if there was a problem with it. I thought I was doing my job as a new board member to go and look at different options for a building project when all I was given was one option from this firm now, KCBA.”

Francis said KCBA was not the lowest bidder (back in 2015). State code does not require school districts to choose the lowest bidder when it comes to purchasing professional services.

In October 2015, KCBA and two other firms — Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates and EI Associates — gave public presentations to the school board about what their firms offered.

Current Board President Dutch Brennan attended that meeting as a board member-to-be and recalled how KCBA “went down the list offering tools to lay out the plans for the board to see that none of the architects volunteered.”

Brennan, Bill Ceglar and current board Vice President Wayne Hippo were elected to the board after the previous board hired KCBA to do a study on the best use of the district’s 1.5 million square feet of building space and building conditions.

In April 2016, KCBA presented its recommendation to demolish half of the high school and build new. Three other options were subsequently released by KCBA and published on the district’s website.

Those options were further discussed when Super­intendent Charles Prijatelj was hired.

From April through December 2016, McKissick Associates — namely Karcher, former owner of Hayes Large Architects who joined McKissick Associates in 2012 — continually appealed to the school board for the predesign contract that KCBA was awarded.

Karcher did not return calls about the talks with the current board.

Karcher had maintained his firm could provide lower cost alternatives to renovate the B building instead of demolishing it.

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