LAWTON – The Comanche County Board of Commissioners recently signed off on a $23,920 change order for additional work on the new parking lot across from the Comanche County Courthouse.
After a short discussion, the board voted unanimously Sept. 2 to approve the change order from RCJ Construction.
The project included tearing down the old American National Bank building and building a new, lighted parking lot across from the courthouse.
An Aug. 18 change order called for RCJ to add concrete for 11 or 12 closed islands in the new parking lot to a depth of 4 inches, Southwest Ledger reported on Sept. 2. The order also said the company would paint arrows and no-parking stripes on the south side of the parking lot along D Avenue, which was required by the city of Lawton.
The original contract for the project was for $674,828.96, but the cost was adjusted due to the Aug. 18 change order and a previous change order. The change orders totaled $97,800, and the new contract sum was $772,628.96.
The commissioners considered approving the change order on Aug. 25 but decided to delay action for another week. Commission Chairman Josh Powers said at the time that postponing action on the change order would mean that the project was not completed on schedule, and RCJ would incur a penalty as a result.
Commissioner Johnny Owens, who represents District 2, said at the Aug. 25 meeting that the contractor was not responsible for the delay. He said the fault lay with him and the city of Lawton.
Owens did not respond to an email seeking comment before press time.
Original contract During the commission’s Sept. 2 meeting, Powers said the district attorney had said he never received the documents needed to determine whether the information in the Aug. 18 change order was part of the original contract.
“Do we know if it was in the original contract or not?” Powers asked.
Corinne Owensby, chief deputy for the Second District, said the islands were included in the original contract. She said the contract called for the islands to be filled with topsoil and sod.
“But after those were approved and more thought was put into it, it would have to be an irrigation system and all of that to water the grass, which would cost way more than it would be to fill in with concrete,” Owensby said. “So it was just a changing of the plan afterwards.”
Powers said if the language concerning the islands was included in the original contract, then modifying the kind of work that was required was not considered a change order.
“We’re just changing the type of work that’s going to be done,” he said. “So that, I think, answers the question then.”