The state’s architectural licensing board rejected proposed settlements Thursday in an enforcement case involving the investigative findings into a two-firm team designing CCISD’s new Dorothy Adkins Middle School.

 

Members of the CCISD team, which is composed of architects James Ian Powell, Irene Nigaglioni and Joel Hernndez, all of statewide firm PBK Architects; and Corpus Christi architect Raymond Gignac of Gignac & Associates, and their attorneys attended Thursday’s meeting of the nine-member Texas Board of Architectural Examiners in Austin.

 

Nigaglioni wasn’t at the meeting, the state board’s communications manager Glenn Garry said.

 

The state board’s investigation stems from a formal complaint filed by 32 local architects and engineers alleging the architect team discussed and mentioned fees during an August interview with Corpus Christi Independent School District trustees to design the district’s new middle school. The school will carry the namesake of the late Dorothy Adkins, a former district educator and trustee, and will be located off Wooldridge Road and the future extension of Ennis Joslin Road.

 

Garry said the board met in executive session Thursday before coming back into open session and rejecting the proposed penalties, which ranged from a $5,000 fine to a two-violation combined fine of $10,000, in connection with the state board’s investigation.

 

Those fines were detailed in notices of violation sent to the architects and their attorneys in mid-January [2013].

 

As part of the settlement rejection, Garry said, state board members told enforcement staff to focus on three areas to re-evaluate: the proposed penalty amounts, potential additional board rule violations and proposed settlement language.

 

Garry and Austin attorney Matthew Ryan, who represents one of the architects, said enforcement staff, the architects, the attorneys and board Executive Director Cathy L. Hendricks were in agreement about the proposed settlements before they were considered by the board.

 

Ryan said the attorneys, their clients and enforcement staff will continue negotiations.

 

Enforcement staff could report back to the state board as soon as its next scheduled meeting in August [2014].

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State architectural licensing board rejects proposed settlements for CCISD architect team  

 

http://www.tbae.state.tx.us/Content/documents/TBAE/agendas/AUG2014BOARDNOTEBOOK.pdf