Light Poles at Football Field May Be Defective, We May Know for Sure Saturday
September 16th, 2009 by Joe Burgess
Monticello School Superintendent Bobby Harper told the school board at Tuesday night’s meeting that the 4 light poles over Hyatt Field have been recalled by their manufacturer, which has now reportedly filed for bankruptcy and is no longer in business.
The school district’s architect recently contacted the school to tell them that the poles are being recalled because of welds around the base of the poles, where the poles are attached to a concrete base, which are deteriorating in some cases of poles produced by Whitco, mainly in Texas, but not exclusively in Texas.
The Searcy school district has 20 poles like this; 4 of them are defective; forcing Searcy to cancel their home football games for the season.
Camden-Fairview, who has 4 of the poles, had them inspected, is unaffected at this point, since all of their poles passed safely.
The company who inspected the Searcy and Camden-Fairview poles is apparently the only company in the country that can say that this “is all we do,” and employs a construction engineer and 2 inspectors.
That company was approved by the school board to come to Monticello, Saturday, to inspect the Hyatt Field poles. A preliminary report will likely be comleted at the scene, with the official documentation being provided to the district before the next home football game, in October.
Information provided to the board shows that the defective poles were insalled between 2000 and 2006. The poles here were put down in 2001.
If the poles are defective, their replacement cost would likely run around $125,000 each.
Harper recommended that the board approve the company’s fee of $4,720 for inspection of the poles, this weekend, and said that this cost is in the range of what the cost was to Searcy and Camden-Fairview.
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