Superintendent holds community forum regarding Linderman gym
Rob Zolman
Polson School District Superintendent Rex Weltz provides an update on the status of the Linderman gymasium.
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POLSON – The Linderman gymnasium was the topic of discussion during a Jan. 19 evening forum held at the Polson High School auditorium. Polson School District Superintendent Rex Weltz provided an update to about 50 people including school board members and district staff on the current status of the Linderman gym.
The gym has been closed since early January 2018 following a severe winter storm that deposited a heavy amount of snow on the gym’s roof causing a parapet wall lining the roof to bulge and fail. Cascading snow, ice and bricks fell through the roof of locker rooms and offices below.
David Simons, City of Polson building official, has determined that the Linderman gymnasium is not to be used for school or public activities until his office receives an engineering report with supporting data, calculations and modeling that demonstrates the facility is safe to occupy.
Weltz said, very adamantly: “I will not put a student, staff member or community member in there until it’s safe. If it takes me three years, I am sorry. We are not going to put anyone in there until we can pass code.”
The district plans to continue negotiations with engineers and Travelers Insurance to develop an agreement concerning financial support in either the reconstruction or repair of the gym. “We have been working on this for almost a year and that’s the frustrating part,” Weltz said.
Travelers recently made a request for the first time to the district office for the replacement cost required to make Linderman a functional gymnasium. “They are asking for numbers, which is a positive sign,” Weltz said.
The district is in the process of supplying those numbers to the insurance company.
On the district's website, a new page has been set up to provide people with the latest information on the status of the Linderman gymnasium at https://gateway.polson.k12.mt.us.
