The construction of the new Port Arthur animal shelter resumed earlier this week after being called in to question about the length of the process by members of the Port Arthur city council.

Construction was temporarily halted after the construction crew discovered 21 concrete pylons left over from the previous building. Reportedly neither the demolition crew nor the construction crew knew about the pylons until after construction began.

The contracted construction crew was called in front of the city council by Councilmembers Thomas J. Kinlaw III and Donald Frank, Sr. after concerns of needing to extend the contract the city signed that could cost taxpayers.

“Nobody can extend the contract except for this council. That’s it,” said Kinlaw. “No extensions on contracts except for, because those alibi days are built in the contracts and that’s what this council needs to start taking advantage of. We need to hold people and contractors and businesses accountable to the contracts that we sign and that’s what I’m doing. So when I go out there and I passed there for two weeks and nobody’s been working for two weeks straight, I contact the manager.”

The construction, done by Construction Zone of Southeast Texas, LLC, then had to seek approval from the city to begin the removal of the pylons and create a new design for the foundation of the building to accommodate the changes. The process took roughly one month to restart construction.

“That was during the time they had to get the new foundation drawings from the engineer,” said Darlene Thomes-Pierre, Code Compliance Manager. “ When they realized that a new design would have to be done of course then it takes time for them to do the drawings, get them approved and then get them to the contractor. It goes through an approval process. It takes time to do that because you want to be sure that the foundation will serve the building well.”

Currently, there are no plans to shift the Spring deadline for construction to complete.