Despite Claims, Construction in Downtown Concord is Not Done

Call them creative headlines and reports or even the best media coverage money can buy since the taxpayers (and renters, too) in the city of Concord shelled out tens of thousands of dollars for public relations funds to promote the city’s $12 million Main Street project. But whatever you do, don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, as the saying goes.

And that appears to be the case as media outlets in Concord as well as PR folks and city officials proclaimed last week that the north side of the project was completed and on budget when, in fact, those claims don’t appear to be accurate.

A week after the reopening of North Main Street to two-way, two lane traffic, with a Concord Monitor headline stating that construction had come to a “close” and two weeks after the city’s project website stated that work was in its “final week,” the street was still being worked on.

Severino Construction workers were seen laboring to lay pavers on the City Plaza on the afternoon on Nov. 19, 2015. Other workers were also seen on ladders adjusting and working on lampposts and fiddling on other parts of the street. On the project’s official website on Friday morning, the continued construction was called “some small punch-list items to complete before the end of the year.”

But that’s not “done” or “complete” – that’s “almost” done. Construction work still being performed on a project after an imposed or perceived deadline would be a project that is behind schedule, not on time. The creative headlines and fanfare have led more than a few people to wonder, What was all this talk about the northern half of the project being completed if it’s not actually done?

“They lied,” quipped one elected official who was sitting at the bar of The Barley House around lunchtime on Thursday when asked why everyone was saying the work was completed when it actually wasn’t.

So one had to immediately wonder if the media and officials weren’t being accurate about the work being completed, is it really “on budget”?

According to Brian LeBrun, the deputy city manager-finance, for the city of Concord, the project financials look good but it won’t be known, for sure, until the entire project is completed late next year, not unlike any city or school project.

“It’s on-target,” LeBrun said of the project’s budget, noting that the city had spent about half – just shy of $5.9 million – on the north side of the project.

LeBrun stated that Severino was billing the city monthly and officials were keeping track of and eyeing all of the billing items to ensure that everything is accurate, accounted for, and coming out of the proper line items (since federal money was involved). He noted that the city also had a list of things that it was prepared to rectify in case the project goes awry when the southern part starts next year.

Not unlike the Concord School District elementary school consolidation project, which had numerous problems (and still does, if you’ve eyed the lawn at the McAuliffe Elementary School recently), the Main Street project has a warranty for the work.

LeBrun stated that the project has a two-year warranty that begins along two timelines: Once the city signs off on the completed work on the north section, the warranty begins on that date; next year, after the southern portion of the project is complete and signed off on, the second two-year warranty will begin.

The project’s financials, however, LeBrun confirmed, are not split in two, so whether it ends up “on budget” – or not – won’t actually be known until sometime in in late 2016 or early 2017. So any headline suggesting otherwise isn’t really accurate either because the project isn’t finished.

Of course, in the world of public relations, political glad handling, and in many cases, outright deception, especially when it comes to communicating with property taxpayers, renters, and other indirect taxpayers, the spin never stops and the truth often dies, unfortunately, when there is collusion and cheerleading going on by the entangled interests of some in a community. And this, frankly, doesn’t – and shouldn’t – surprise anyone who has lived in Concord long enough.

As far as the project goes, there have already been a number of complaints raised including cobblestones that don’t appear to be set properly, pedestrian difficulty navigating between permanent bike racks and granite benches and some business owners who set up tables that blocked sidewalks (some of those issues have also been addressed), cutaways and curbing that make it difficult to navigate into some parking spaces, water puddle problems, the danger of being rear-ended when backing out of angled parking because there is no longer a second lane for oncoming cars to drive into to avoid the vehicles leaving spaces, the issue of whether or not the redesign is safer or more dangerous for bicyclists, as well as improperly constructed handicapped parking spaces where the handicapped driver’s door opens up into incoming, single lane traffic.

But other than these issues, it really does look nice, doesn’t it?

Let’s all hope that the changes will be a renaissance for Downtown Concord – something that remains to be seen – and not a maintenance nightmare for taxpayers.