Firm banned from Norwood High job

Agostini Construction Corp., the general contractor for the $68.6 million new Norwood High School, has banished one of the contractors working at the Nichols Street site because a truck showed up shortly after 4 a.m. and the noise workers made removing equipment woke up the neighbors.

"I apologize and we will continue to work with the Police Department to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Michael Moise, executive manager for Agostini, at Friday's weekly high school update meeting at Town Hall. "We try as hard as we can that we don't disturb the neighborhood."

Moise, who did not name the company, has since told the "sub-subcontractor," which was on site at 4:15 a.m. on Wednesday, that its workers are not welcomed back on the project.

He has also sent out a memo reminding all contractors that the work hours are from 7 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and they "will be strictly enforced."

Moise has worked with the Police Department over the past few days to make sure that work hours are enforced and the neighbors are not disturbed by before- and after-hour noise.

"We want to make sure that there will be citations, fines, and court appearances, if anyone were to ignore these rules," said Moise. "We are not looking for leniency. "

Moise also mentioned that Agostini Construction has twice sent out the work hours and traveling routes in writing to the project's sub-contractors.

Each week there is a meeting with the contractors on site and they go through the routes and the working hours "making sure that everyone understands them," Moise said.

Moise compared being a general contractor to a parent or an owner of a day care center.

"You always get that rogue child who is a little controversial and rambunctious," said Moise. "That is what happened here."

Prior to Friday's weekly meeting on the high school project at Town Hall, General Manager John Carroll had just received a phone call from a concerned neighbor about a crane being brought onto the job site by a truck. The neighbor said the noise of moving the crane was just too loud.

The crane should not have been on Nichols Street, Moise said.

District 4 Town Meeting member Anne Haley saw the truck around 8 a.m. on Nichols Street.

"It took up the whole street," Haley said.

Moise said he doesn't know why the driver traveled down Nichols Street.

"All I can say is maybe the driver took a wrong turn and when that thing takes a wrong turn you can't back up," he said.

"That is why it was critical to get this done before school started," said project manager Tim Bonfatti, who said had kids and teachers been going to school at the time, the traffic problem would have been huge. "This would have been a disaster."

Three truckloads of steel were expected to come in Friday afternoon and Moise said he was going to make sure they take the correct route to the site so that they would not have that problem again.

Daily News staff writer Lindsay Briggs can be reached at 781-433-8339 or libriggs@cnc.com.