By Marianna Levine

The majority of last Wednesday’s Bridgehampton School Board Meeting was taken up with three presentations of new window treatments to replace windows that are currently rotting away at the school. Although the situation is somewhat urgent, the process of replacement is a slow and complex one.

For over an hour-and-a-half representatives from Kolbe &Kolbe, Loewen, and Marvin windows presented samples of their windows and discussed the methods of window removal and installation. The architectural firm of Chaleff & Rodgers had recommended these three vendors to the board as they could provide the unusually large windows the school needed to replace.

The price estimates from the three vendors varied widely. Sales representative Chris Brown from Loewen windows stressed the company’s higher price point because of their commitment to quality.

“We use Douglas fir not pine for our windows and we only install one line. Typically we are higher in price because the highest quality of product is our aim.” But in fact his price quote of $298,000 was by far the lowest.

Kolbe& Kolbe’s quote was $342,000 while Marvin Windows was $370,000. This realization surprised board member Joe Berhalter. The architects thought the price quote was a reflection of how competitive Loewen wanted to be.

The board was thorough and careful in its review, as there are several complicating circumstances in the replacement. Primarily the board must submit a budget amount to the school district for a vote prior to starting any work on the window replacement. In order to establish the amount, the board must research various products and manufacturers prior to going to the public with an amount.

Interim business manager George Chesterton cautioned, “you have to get approval from the voters for an amount that would be sufficient to get the job done, which means you absolutely have to go to the higher end of the budget … You are obliged to stay within the dollar amount approved but you don’t need to stick to the vendors and installers…you don’t want to come up short.” He also outlined other costs such as advertising the need for window replacement to the voters, and legal fees.

New board member Doug DeGroot asked several questions concerning the time required to get budget approval and then go to the state for approval, noting that ideally the windows would be replaced next summer. He specifically asked, “How much longer do we need to keep collecting numbers?” Chesterton and Superintendent Dr. Diane Youngblood had discussed this during the week, and thought there was enough time to get everything done for next summer.

The other difficult circumstance was the fact that Marvin windows had manufactured and installed the school’s current faulty windows approximately ten years ago. The windows should have lasted much longer but had been installed improperly by a company in New Jersey that had since gone out of business.

Chris Geiger, the commercial sales consultant from Marvin, stayed longer to answer board members concerns about the windows and their warranty.

Berhalter asked, “Aren’t we replacing Marvin windows, so what’s the difference?”

To which Geiger replied there was different technology in use now, as well as responding “a lot of mistakes were made in installing the last windows.”

When questioned by DeGroot about whether the installers had been recommended by Marvin, and how he expected it to be different this time, Geiger only answered that the “installer is long gone.”

Geiger did reassure the board that the warranty of the windows is now much longer that it was when the prior windows were installed.

When board members asked about receiving some sort of discount for Marvin windows considering it was their windows and installation that had caused the problems to begin with, it seemed there was none forthcoming.

In the end, both board president Elizabeth Kotz as well as Dr. Youngblood stressed the urgency of moving forward with the plans, although Berhalter worried, “There is a lot of money involved.”

In other board news, there was a mix up in the wording of a library budget approval that the board needed to vote on, which held up the resolution until a special board meeting held on Monday, August 31. The mix up had been resolved by then.

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