Vandals hand unfinished school another setback

Cathy Scott

Monday, Nov. 17, 1997 | 12:47 p.m.

Vandals driving a backhoe mowed through a building and two ballfield backstops over the weekend at the unfinished Guy Elementary School in North Las Vegas.

Clark County School District Police discovered the damage Sunday night. An ignition lock in the backhoe didn't stop the vandals, police said.

The school, at 4028 La Madre Way near Lone Mountain Road and Valley Drive, was locked up Friday afternoon by a construction crew at Wolfe Elementary next door, police said. The backhoe had been left in the schoolyard.

A few weeks ago, someone took the backhoe parked on the Guy school site and drove it over to Wolfe's baseball field, which abuts Guy's, and ran over the backstop fence, said Tom Fallon, president of Pace Constructing Co., which is building the school. The company moved the backhoe and forklift off the property because of it. But Sunday, vandals stole a backhoe from Wolfe Elementary and drove it over to Guy and "rammed our building," Fallon said.

After entering the site, the vandals drove through a wall on the northeast side of the building and over two baseball fields, partially knocking down the chain-link backstops, police said.

As with many of the district's new schools, Guy has been plagued with construction delays. The school was originally set to open in October but had its opening pushed back to Jan. 5, said district spokesman Ray Willis.

"It's the construction companies' responsibility to protect themselves against damage until we take possession of the school," Willis said.

Fallon said it wouldn't delay the opening of the school. Pace Constructing is building the school with funds from the 1994 school bond measure. A damage estimate had not yet been calculated, Fallon said, adding, "We'll take care of the repairs."

The vandalism was similar to that done using construction machinery recently at Lied Middle School, but with a front-loader instead of a backhoe, said Officer Ken Young, spokesman for the district. There, vandals rammed doors and windows and did mostly interior damage, he said. At Guy, the damage was external, Young said.