If asking nicely doesn’t work, try hitting them in the wallet.
That’s the approach the Spokane Valley Fire Department is attempting now with the Montana company that refurbished the Barker Road Bridge, but has been slow in cleaning up building materials that were left behind.
At Monday’s fire commissioners meeting, Deputy Chief Larry Rider got the informal blessing from the board for the department to charge Morgen and Oswood Construction of Great Falls, Mont., $50 a day – although an amount of $100 per day and steadily increasing from there was also discussed – until the equipment is removed from Valley Fire land at the corner of Barker and Euclid.
“I’ve been telling them all kinds of things,” Rider told the commissioners in an update from a report first given on March 28. “The problem is they’re not listening.”
Work on the bridge finished nearly a year ago, and the company left “40 trucks worth of stuff,” according to Rider, on the site. Originally, the property was to have been cleared last September, but the contractor asked for an extension to March 31. Only a fraction of the equipment has been removed in that time, and Rider is getting anxious to plant grass seed and install a sprinkler system, “otherwise we’ll have a weed patch.”
The company has supplied proof of insurance and is bonded, Rider said, but said the company “is not moving very fast.”
“They’ve been uncooperative in communications,” he said, adding that he hoped the company would supply a signed agreement to clean up the mess in 10 more days. If that doesn’t happen, the department could raise the rent.
“But we don’t want them to stay,” Rider said. “We want them gone.”
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TheSpokane Valley News Herald