Published: July 09, 2008 01:56 am      

Legal advice about Mannington Pool situation being sought

MANNINGTON — The Marion County Commission is seeking legal advice about a situation at the Mannington Pool, Commissioner Randy Elliott said this week.

About 10 years ago, the Mannington Park Board hired Fibre Tech, a pool surfacing company from Largo, Fla., to install a new fiberglass coating to the 75-year-old Hough Park Swimming Pool, the city’s only local swimming facility. At that time, the county commission supplied over $40,000 to fund the material

But in the last three to four years, the liner has started coming apart, and park board President Katie Stafford said the group went back to the company, which gave a 25-year warranty on its work, to fund the repairs.

“We wrote a letter to the company asking them to help and stand behind what we thought was a guarantee,” she explained.

The park board is certain that Fibre Tech is responsible for the problems at the pool, Stafford said. And while the pool is up and running smoothly today with no leaks or problems because of various “Band-Aid” approaches that the park board has taken, it is still in need of a permanent remedy, which Stafford said has been estimated to cost $300,000.

She and her husband, Lenny Stafford, who is also the former mayor and a park board volunteer, attended a city council meeting this week along with Elliott to discuss this issue with council members.

“The pool is ready to collapse in on itself,” Lenny Stafford said. “It is the worst piece of workmanship that’s ever been done in this town. (The company) is responsible, and they should have been behind it.”

Elliott said the company did not etch and clean the liner as it should have when it was installed. Katie Stafford said that the company also hired two inexperienced local workers to install the liner when it was put in.

But, according to a letter sent from Fibre Tech at the beginning of last month, the company does not believe the problems at the pool are the result of its work. Officials from the company performed an on-site inspection of the pool in late April.

“What we found during our inspection is severe structural movement, cracking as a result of this movement and concrete spalling,” the letter states. “All of this has resulted in cracking and delaminating of our material.”

In response, Elliott said this letter is “untrue” and he has turned the case over to county attorney Charles Shields to examine. Elliott said the commissioners are involved in the situation both because of their initial investment in the liner and because they would like to ensure that the North Marion area maintains its local swimming source.

“It was a county issue, and we are obviously wanting to help any way we can,” Elliott said. “It is a public pool, even though it belongs to the city.”

He said the commissioners are scheduled to meet with Shields today to discuss the issue.

“This is not done yet. We are talking to (Shields) to see what avenues we can take to fix this,” he said. “It’s shoddy workmanship, and it was terribly done. The county is prepared to do what we have to get this taken care of.”

E-mail Mallory Panuska at mpanuska@timeswv.com.