Allied

Problems at Battle Creek School

While Allied Mechanical was working on Battle Creek Central High, the Battle Creek School District had to put up with many problems because of Allied. Not only did the district have to put up with pickets because of Allied working on the job site, but also gross negligence that could have caused a disastrous situation.

On October 11, 2000, a concerned citizen called the Battle Creek Fire Department when they noticed what appeared to be smoke coming out of the ground in front of the school.

LASER has received information that Allied Mechanical Services’ credit is currently on hold with DuZurik Company, as of February 6, 2002. DuZurik did some work for Allied on a job for the City of Charlotte and DuZurik was not paid for its work, so the situation is now in litigation. Further details on this story will follow in the next issue.

A local contractor was called by the main-tenance supervisor for the Battle Creek Schools to inspect the urgent situation at W.K. Kellogg School.

The inspector realized that the problem was a steam leak coming up through the lawn. They dug into the lawn and found a six-inch pipe inside a tile. The piping superintendent then traced the line back to the construction site at Battle Creek Central High to find out where the line was located.

The piping superintendent said, "There seemed to be a reluctance to let me go on the construction project... I insisted that we inspect the site. My concern for proceeding as quickly as pos-sible was for the safety of the children, teachers, and staff of the school."

The piping superintendent was finally allowed to go on to the property— escorted. He then traced the leak to an abandoned six-inch pipe.

Apparently, Allied had tied a live steam line into the abandoned six-inch line which caused the problem. The blueprints of the construction site showed a ten-inch line and the leaking pipe was only six inches.

When asked if there was a set of blueprints showing the abandoned line, the piping superintendent was given the runaround and told that there weren’t any. Later, it was found out that Allied did have blueprints showing the pipe.

A Name Change Can’t Change Old Problems

In 1985, a company named Associated Mechanical Services (AMS) filed for bankruptcy. Right before and during the proceedings, AMS abandoned some thirteen construction jobs, violated numerous contracts to pay into health and pension funds and many of its creditors were left with nothing.

During this time, the management of AMS set up at least fourteen corporations— one of these being Allied Mechanical Services. Two executives of AMS transferred to Allied, John Huizinga as president and Dan Huizinga as Secretary-Treasurer. The latter selection is remarkable considering that during the bankruptcy proceedings; the judge that presided over the case admonished Dan Huizinga for providing "defective" testimony during the trial.

Ironically, when AMS emerged from federal bankruptcy court, the newly formed Allied Mechanical was back in court over violations of tax statutes, wage and pension laws, sexual discrimination, illegal labor practices, and safety violations. Allied Mechanical has since been involved in a bevy of local lawsuits that range from defective work and unpaid bills to worker injuries. Former managers of AMS and now of Allied Mechanical have been filing liens and court suits, many times against their own customers.

In one case, the federal court ruled that Allied’s labor practices had caused it to be ineligible for private funding (market-recovery funding) that would have lowered its contracting costs. Instead, Andy Huizinga and two other principals of AMS, Ralph Scotese and Larry Vanderbeek, were ordered to pay over $800,000 in back taxes.