ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
The bleacher installation project at the rodeo arena at the Seward County Fairgrounds has been temporarily stalled.
After workers were thought to have completed the project, officials with the county’s Planning and Zoning department were called to do an inspection of the bleachers, and Administrator April Warden said upon that inspection, county commissioners received a packet of pictures of the erected bleachers showing materials used for the project were lightweight.
Warden said this created some concern as project engineering plans were reviewed.
“The engineered plans call for three-eighths aluminum,” she said. “The bleachers are made or constructed with three-16ths aluminum. Some of the vertical risers were not matching up, and you do not have the proper load disbursement without those being matched up.”
Warden said two-grade bolts were used instead of the five-grade bolts called for in the engineered specifications. She said county officials met with the project manager and contractor, Ernesto Ramirez of Bleachers International, and an item was added to Monday’s agenda to see what can be done moving forward with the project.
Planning and Zoning Administrator Albert Gallegos said there were many concerns with the structural integrity of the bleachers.
“All your horizontal runners, all those are three-eighths,” he said. “The only thing that’s three-16ths on the plans is your diagonal bracing.”
Gallegos said the pictures provided at Monday’s meeting showed many of the boxes on the bleachers flipped upside down, which means much of the stands’ load bracing is not lining up correctly.
“The verticals, they’re not in line,” he said. “They’re offsetting maybe three to four inches, so we have some concerns with the load path on those boxes for those bleachers.”
Gallegos said the five-grade bolts Warden spoke of connect the bleachers’ boxes together.
“At the top of the bleachers, it’s between the boxes,” Gallegos said. “Those bolts are connecting the boxes and keeping a parallel.”
Gallegos said other concerns found included the openings between the risers from the guards on the bleachers.
“Where the handrail or the guard’s coming down, you have that gap between the riser and the actual guard itself on the plans,” he said. “Those guards are supposed to be brought down and line underneath the riser coming all the way up. That would eliminate that gap.”
Gallegos said handrail rows placed on the front of the ramps too caused some concerns.
“They didn’t have the proper building that is called for on the plans,” he said. “On some of your step risers, there’s supposed to be no gap at all, and there we have gaps all over the place.”
Commission Vice Chair Tammy Sutherland-Abbott asked if the material itself was inspected before installation started.
“Did anybody review that packing list to see if they had the wrong stuff before they even started constructing it?” she said. “Where does that fall because that’s where it should have been caught?”
Greg Soelter of GBS Enterprises LLC, the general contractor for the project, said the company putting the bleachers together is the same company that manufactured them.
“It’s all in the same group,” he said. “It’s not like it was manufactured in a factory somewhere, and it was sold to Bleachers International and they brought it in and started putting it together. It’s all one group. They manufacture, and they go out and build it. There was some talk about the fact this was odds and ends pieces of several different things. This was made for this project. It’s not odds and ends pieces put together.”
Soelter said Ramirez said the bleachers were in fact built with three-16ths aluminum, and drawings showed three-eighths aluminum was needed.
“We’re working to correct that,” Soelter said. “It was agreed we would allow him to get with his structural engineer, and that’s what we have to rely on.”
Soelter said Ramirez will go back to a structural engineer to analyze the work done thus far to determine if a complete tear down is necessary or if modifications can be made.
Soelter added a stamped engineer report should be brought to Liberal along with Ramirez, and they, along with Gallegos and Building Inspector Kent Hamlin can go over the report and point out onsite what needs to be done.
“After getting that report and going out there and looking at it, if someone still has issues and we think we need to have another opinion, we need to get together and meet about that,” Soelter said. “Until we can get everybody onsite, including Ernesto and the engineer, I don’t think there’s much we need to do with it.”
Warden said commissioners needed to be aware of what was happening and what decisions were being made.
“I understand we had a plan of action, but that has to be communicated to them,” she said.
Soelter said the course the project is on should be changed until the work that was agreed upon is done.
“If we are not in agreement and it’s not up to what we think it needs to be, we’d better have another get together and decide what that course of action should be,” he said.
Sutherland-Abbott asked if there was a deadline when the commissioners should expect answers. Soelter said those answers should be received by the end of the year.
“We said we needed to have a couple weeks, and at that point, we’re at just about three,” Soelter said. “I know he’s trying to finish that up. Within another week, we ought to be able to have an onsite meeting.”
Sutherland-Abbott then asked why workers with Bleachers International did not follow the specs given to them. Soelter said Ramirez, who has installed and built bleachers for years, told him he had never used three-eighths aluminum.
“I think they went to their shop and started building like they’ve normally been building,” Soelter said. “He agreed 100 percent it was showing three-eighths on there. Three-eighths is a hard piece of angle to come up with. It’s not as common as the three-16ths.”
“Any other contractor who would not follow specs exactly, we would really be having some issues with and expecting everything to be done perfectly according to our specs,” Sutherland-Abbott said.
Soelter said often, plans are made for a project, but as building begins, issues occur, causing contractors to revisit engineers to let them know what is drawn up will not work.
“We need to figure out what the correction’s going be to correct that,” he said. “If it becomes a structural issue, you go back to your structural engineer to make sure whatever you’re coming up with a fix on it, does meet structural guidelines.”
Sutherland-Abbott emphasized the money being used to pay for the project belongs to the county’s taxpayers.
“This is our community’s project, and we’re just representatives of our taxpayers,” she said. “We have to adhere exactly to what we bid out.”
Clark Simpson of GMCN Architects, the firm that drew up the design for the bleachers, said drawings did not specify the size of materials.
“Those were to be engineered and designed by the fabricator of the bleachers,” he said. “Ernesto submitted drawings showing this is what the engineer said we needed to use to construct the bleachers, and that’s not what you have onsite. That’s where we got off track. It wasn’t that they intentionally started out to use the wrong size. Every manufacturer uses different sizes, and that’s why when we specify it, we specify a performance or an expectation of what it’s supposed to meet to fulfill the code requirements of loads. It’s up to the bleacher manufacturer and the engineer to design them to meet that requirement.”
Simpson said Ramirez did not clearly look at the submitted shop drawings.
“They just went out and started fabricating when his engineers said that’s what they needed, and that’s where the job got off track,” Simpson said.
Sutherland-Abbott said the bleachers need to be carefully constructed for the safety of those using them.
“If we had a group of people out there and we were watching a rodeo and the load collapsed, I’m sure we wouldn’t be able to come back in the reverse process and say we’re sorry,” she said. “We have to make sure this is right. It’s not just about money for the taxpayers. We have a responsibility for their safety and well being. We need to correct this.”
Commissioner Presephoni Fuller asked who will pay for the correction. Soelter said Ramirez has accepted full responsibility.
“I’ve had several phone calls with him, and he has accepted that responsibility,” Soelter said.
Soelter said Ramirez is planning to come to Liberal to talk about the bleacher project and what can be done to fix the issues.
“He wanted to get his ducks in a row so when he came down here, he could answer questions responsibly with what his discussions have been with his engineer,” Soelter said.
Commission Chairman Scott Carr agreed with Sutherland-Abbott, saying safety is a top priority for the project.
“I know the commission’s going to be tough on this because we paid for the heavier materials, and it was designed that way for a reason,” Carr said.
Soelter said he would keep County Consultant Neal Coffey informed on a timeline of what is being done so the problems can be corrected.
