Thursday, November 20, 2008

Courthouse Moves Forward, and Gets A Pounding

Pile Driving Courthouse Site

My colleague Ken Bonacci is mentioned in the News again:  Pile-driving to start on new courthouse.  He’s understandably worried:

One resident complained that he was informed of the planned work only last Wednesday, which was after the deadline for scheduling a property survey.

"There was no reason for a last-minute notification on how this was going to impact the neighborhood," said Ken Bonacci, a resident of Lynde Street. "I'm not impressed with the way this was handled."

Bonacci said he and his wife spent the weekend "taking everything down off the wall" in the event of heavy vibrations from the construction work. He said a survey eventually was done on his condominium.

"It may sound like last minute," Keenan said, "but I think they notified (neighbors) as soon as they had a plan and were ready to get going."

That’s more notice than I got nearly six years ago.  At that time, the Parker Brothers site was redeveloped by JPI for their Jefferson project.  Construction involved pile driving;  I’m not sure how many piles were driven, but it sure sounded like a lot when they were working.

I never got a letter from them.  Of course, I would have gotten the letter from the Salem Housing Authority, whom they would have notified.  But no letter either way.

The pile driving went on for several months.

I had had a five-year old 27” TV I had expected to keep for 10-15 years.  Five years after the construction it was dead.   I’m sure the pile driving had everything to do with it.

Of course I have no recourse, the construction firm and indeed the original owners of the Jefferson are long gone.

So I’m out $20 for a CRT sticker so it can finally go on the curb.  (I had tried to find the problem and fix it, but had no success finding the source, let alone repairing it.)  The TV is arguably obsolete now due to the impending shutoff of analog TV, but it still rankles.

I hope Ken has better luck than I. 

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