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Newark Unified board weighs emergency HVAC fix as temporary cooling costs climb
Summary
District staff urged emergency action to replace thermostats after widespread HVAC controls failures and Cal/OSHA-driven temporary-unit mandates; board members pressed for documentation and competitive bids and tabled an emergency procurement while approving a related CalSHAPE contract.
District staff told the Newark Unified School District Board of Education that a longstanding controls problem with classroom HVAC systems has escalated since the start of the school year, leaving scores of thermostats unresponsive and forcing the installation of noisy temporary units on some campuses.
Superintendent Bakar introduced a staff presentation led by Travis Dradus and procurement manager Antonio Lopez, who said the district has spent about $472,860 on the original controls contract and repairs since 2010 and that a majority of recent failures appear to be controls/thermostat related. Staff said six classrooms retrofitted with Pelican thermostats have worked, and that replacing thermostats districtwide (534 thermostats) could restore many units.
Staff also told the board that Cal/OSHA complaints prompted bringing in temporary air-conditioning units — 20 units at Kennedy Elementary at a reported $12,778 per month and roughly 50 units at the middle school at about $43,290 per month — and argued those recurring rental costs, plus an expedited replacement window tied to a CalSHAPE grant, created urgency to move quickly.
Board member Hill pushed back repeatedly during the discussion, saying the problem has occurred for years and that the district needed robust documentation, independent analysis and clear bids before invoking emergency procurement authority. "When you come before a body and are asking us to make momentous decisions, you need to bring data," Hill said, asking to see OSHA documentation and written engineering assessments.
Legal counsel Kelly Rem of Lozano Smith advised the board on the legal standard for emergency public-contract exemptions, reading language from the public contract code and noting the board must find a "sudden unexpected occurrence" that poses clear and imminent danger to justify noncompetitive contracting. Rem also reminded the board the district's accounting rules require a four-fifths vote for the narrow emergency delegation being proposed and that staff must report back at the next regular meeting.
After extended questioning from multiple trustees about procurement options, warranty history, and whether the CalSHAPE grant's conditions limit options at some sites, the board signaled consensus to delay action on the emergency HVAC contract (item 12.1) and return with fuller documentation and a full board (Member Jones was absent) at a special meeting within about a week.
The board did not take the emergency procurement vote that night. Staff told trustees they would provide the requested documentation, including OSHA reports and vendor assessments, when the item returns.
