A drawn-out dispute between the state and a construction contractor has left the remains of 122 U.S. military veterans and their spouses in temporary storage lockers for months while a cemetery expansion project has stalled.
Maverick Construction Management, based in Auburn, won a contract last fall to expand the state-owned Agawam Veterans Memorial Cemetery, a 7-acre project expected by designers to take four and a half months of work. Maverick has been paid almost $1 million for completed work so far, according to the state's budget office.
But more than four months after the original opening date of the cemetery expansion, the work is not finished, forcing cemetery staff to house more than 100 remains of veterans and spouses in a temporary structure made of metal lockers while Maverick's excavation gear has often laid dormant at the site, according to a source with knowledge of the project.
The project is funded by federal tax dollars.
Veteran Paul Cool, 87, has been waiting for his wife Jean, who died in February, to be interred in the new portion of the cemetery.
"They're like what you'd have for lockers in a gym where you lock up your clothes when you're taking your gym class, you know?" Cool told WGBH News. "Got padlocks on them."
Over the course of the project, the state lost patience with Maverick and threatened to fire the firm if work wasn't done in line with the contract, according to letters from state officials to Maverick and obtained by WGBH News. In a letter dated May 11, 2016, a state official wrote to Joness about the company's "numerous unsubstantiated allegations" and threatened to essentially fire the company unless work on the rest of the project was continued.
Tim Joness, who is in charge of the project for Maverick, has himself lost patience with the Division of Capital Asset Management and Maintenance, the state agency overseeing the project.
"They put themselves in that situation," Joness told WGBH News in an interview. "They didn't get their act together and get it bid out in a timely fashion, and that put them in the unfortunate position of having to inter cremains in temporary lockers."
The contractor places blame for the delays solely with how the state has managed the project. Issues with the site's irrigation system installed in a previous phase of the project need to be resolved before Joness says he can finalize the grounds and pave the road connecting to old and new portions of the cemetery. Scheduling conflicts with the irrigation subcontractor Maverick selected for the job have also contributed to the delays, according to the contractor.
"It's very frustrating because you're dealing with people that don't know what they're talking about," Joness said. "And they work for the government and they think they can play some kind of hardball, but they have no idea what they're doing."
Work has continued on the project since the state's threat to dismiss Maverick, with the contractor once again working with state engineers to finish the irrigation, landscaping and paving. The expansion is now expected to be open mid-October, according to a source.
Since the delay, cemetery staff have been informing a growing waiting list of families that remains will be housed in the temporary lockers until the project is done.
"I can understand, people hate waiting," Veterans of Foreign Wars national spokesman Joe Davis told WGBH News. According to Davis, the issue is essentially about making sure the work is done correctly, and more importantly, that no remains are misidentified or mixed up. "It's a construction issue. And as a construction issue you have to get it done right, because that's what being respectful means, getting it right."
Cool, who plans to be interred in the new portion of the cemetery himself, said he can notice that "quite a bit" of work has been done by Maverick so far.
"They're building them," Cool said of the expansion area. "You can see them from where she is. It's way up back in the hill and you can't spend time up there because they're still working on it. They won't let anybody in there."
Joness said DCAMM's refusal to dismiss a contract requirement that a minority or woman-owned business (M/WBE) be used for a portion of the project is part of the slowdown. Maverick used a minority or woman-owned irrigation and landscape contractor to fulfill the requirement.
Joness wrote to WGBH News that in "a May 16, 2016 meeting when discussing ways to expedite completion of the project, Mr. Bob Barry, DCAMM Director of Construction, refused to waive the M/WBE requirement. Therefore, DCAMM effectively forced Maverick to use the M/WBE Irrigation/Landscaper and to be held captive by that contractor’s availability and lack of relevant experience."
"It's very difficult to find a minority/women owned business in the first place," Joness told WGBH News.
Maverick signed the contract with the state in late October 2015. The project was initially scheduled to be finished by April or May 2016. According to the state, work began in late January of this year, putting the work on track for completion in mid-May.
Maverick disputes that the project began late, arguing that pre-construction submittals started immediately after signing the contract and onsite work began in early November 2015.
Joness said the claim that his workers weren't on site until January is "laughable."
"I'd done a third of the job by that time," Joness said.
Joness told WGBH News that DCAMM approved Maverick’s requisition for the first payment of the contract for nearly $600,000 which accounted for work done between November and January 2015.
"So DCAMM approved of the project being one-third complete during the time period that DCAMM now says Maverick wasn’t onsite," Joness wrote in a memo to WGBH News about the project.
"All along, all we've tried to do is a good job, but they don't make it easy on you," Joness told WGBH News. "You know what I mean? No good deed goes unpunished with these people."
The state's Administration and Finance department, which DCAMM falls under, declined to respond to a request to address Joness' claims about when work was carried out or the contractor's other complaints about DCAMM's management of the project.
The contract with the Commonwealth states that Maverick is to build a 7-acre expansion of the Agawam site, including assembly of the cemetery's new columbarium, a structure with individual compartments that house cremated remains. The new columbarium will be the final resting place for thousands of veterans and their loved ones.
According to the contract, the expansion project includes clearing the expansion site, storm drain and irrigation installation, surface features and a roadway to the new portion of the cemetery. Without the paved road, the new columbarium cannot be accessed. The structure lays completed, but empty of remains, while the project drags on.
After filling up the existing columbarium, cemetery officials notified families of veterans set for interment of cremated remains that the their loved ones would be housed in the temporary lockers until the project's completion in April 2016. The cemetery began housing ashes in the temporary structures, free-standing rows and columns of lockers before Maverick won the contract.
Joness has argued that the project is not behind schedule because the state failed to update the end-date after requesting changes that lead to delays in installing the irrigation system. The company now plans to pave the road to the columbarium in September or October, according to Joness.
"It just couldn't be done because they change things and those changes take time to resolve and time to actually perform," Joness said. "But I can't tolerate them trying to drag me through the mud and make me look like the bad guy. We're a good contractor. We've done lots of different work and we've got great, varied experience doing all kinds of different projects."
The Baker administration denied WGBH News' request to interview Ford or DCAMM director Carol Gladstone about the Agawam project.
In the letter provided to WGBH, Ford stands by that state's position that Maverick is behind schedule on the Agawam project.
"DCAMM can no longer wait to see if Maverick actually intends to complete the work of the contract," Ford wrote in the letter, which goes on to say that Maverick's claims of needing more information for the irrigation work and the unavailability of a subcontractor to do that work, "are excuses without any merit," Ford wrote.
"Maverick was authorized to proceed with the work on October 29, 2015," Ford's letter states. "Through the original completion date of April 25, 2016, Maverick was only on site 55 of 124 work days, and when on site Maverick failed to perform the work as directed in the contract."
"Maverick's failure to to perform the scope of work in accordance with the contract has resulted in numerous delays and other disputes on the Project," the letter continues. Ford writes that had Maverick performed the work in the plans and specifications for the project, it could have been completed by spring 2016.
Joness wrote in the memo that "Maverick has demanded mandatory mediation on September 21, 2016 as the first step to hopefully resolving this dispute."
The state operates two veterans’ memorial cemeteries: the Agawam location and another in Winchendon.
Massachusetts residents who served in active duty military service, National Guard or United States Reserves service for 20 years and were discharged honorably, and members of the military who die during active duty are eligible for burial in the cemeteries. Spouses and dependent children of eligible veterans are also allowed to be buried in the cemeteries.
There is no fee for veteran burials. Spouses and dependents are charged $300 for a full casket burial or $150 for a cremation burial. Disinterments cost $200.
