Builder Gets Promise for Pay, Plans to Return to Airport Job

The firm building an elevated roadway at John Wayne Airport refused to work Friday in a pay dispute but is expected to return Monday after receiving a promise that it will be paid $300,000.

James McGee, attorney for Kettering-Krussman Inc. of Artesia, said a tentative agreement was reached Friday morning in which the firm would return workers to the construction site Monday morning to pour concrete it had been scheduled to pour Friday.

McGee said, however, that the employees will not perform any work Monday unless the $300,000 has actually been received. The firm claims that it is owed a total of $1.3 million for the project.

Kettering-Krussman’s 60-person work crew did not report to the job site Friday after being told late Thursday that it should not return until the pay issue was settled.

Bill Godwin, a project supervisor for general contractor Taylor Woodrow California Construction Ltd., said his firm agreed during a negotiating session Friday morning to make the payment.

‘Contractual’ Dispute

Godwin said the company had been at odds with Kettering-Krussman over “other contractual matters” that led to the dispute, but he declined to elaborate.

Meanwhile, the county paid the Taylor Woodrow firm $1.74 million on Friday for work done in April on the roadway and a garage project. Taylor Woodrow officials had complained that the payment was overdue, but county officials said Taylor Woodrow had not filed adequately documented payment requests.

Chris Elliott, project manager for the Taylor Woodrow firm, said Friday: “The county is nit-picking and nickeling and diming us to death.” Elliott denied, however, that payment problems were threatening his firm’s ability to stay on the $310-million John Wayne Airport expansion project.