Roncalli Elementary council should have been told about wall collapse
A member of the school council for Roncalli Elementary in St. John's says it should have been notified about the collapse of a brick wall in the building last fall.
There were fortunately no injuries when the two-storey wall came crashing down at the Airport Heights school on September 21, 2014 — which was a Sunday.
However, Bernard Davis, community representative on the school council, said a courtesy call still would have been appreciated. Davis is also a St. John's city councillor, and is running for the Liberals in Virginia Waters-Pleasantville in the upcoming provincial election.
"It probably should've been passed on along to us, and in hindsight I guess they would think that was an error on their behalf," he said.
"I mean, it doesn't take much just to let us know that this happened."
According to an engineer's report which was accessed by blogger Des Sullivan, poor workmanship was cited for the wall collapse.
Davis also believes the incident wouldn't be going around in the media if the school council had been told about the incident after it happened.
He said he thinks it was simply an oversight more than an intentional attempt to cover up the collapse.
To prevent something like a wall collapse for happening again, Davis would like to see the provincial government allow city inspectors into schools that are within city limits.
"This highlights an even bigger issue — the province does not require city staff to perform inspections," he said.
"Every other building in our city, the City of St. John's is required to inspect it and requires our building inspectors to go in."
"The province doesn't require that, but it's something our city has been pushing."
Meanwhile, the province's Transportation and Works minister said the wall was in a construction zone, so there was no danger to students or staff.
However, David Brazil acknowledges the Roncalli school council could have been told about what happened.
"Maybe the communications could have been improved in a different directive, but at the end of the day there was no issue around safety for those students," he said.