Explanation Remains Elusive on How D’Amato Construction Got Tolland School Contract.

The compressed timeline on the replacement of the Birch Gove Primary School continues to include a critical mystery. On January 16, 2019, Tolland’s superintendent of schools requested that competitive bidding be waived on the project. Commissioner Melody Currey granted that request two days later.

Six days after bidding was waived, a planning meeting on the project was held at DAS. It included four Tolland officials; Brian Kellogg, of JCJ Architects; Kosta Diamantis and Bob Celmer, both of DAS’s school construction office; and Ed and Tony D’Amato, of D’Amato Construction. D’Amato Construction had never built a school and, according to its website, had not constructed over overseen the construction on the scale of the $46 million Tolland project. The cost grew as “unsuitable soils” were discovered on the construction site and the price of portable classrooms skyrocket from $1 million to $9 million.

Tolland officials did not bring D’Amato into the project. Tolland superintendent Walter Willett claimed earlier this month that Diamanits threatened the course of the project if Tolland officials did not use D’Amato and Construction Advocacy Professionals (CAP). CAP is the construction oversight company that hired Diamantis’s daughter while she worked as a full-time state employee. It is owned by Antonietta Roy.

The Birch Grove Primary School project appears to be included in the federal criminal investigation of contract steering in the Lamont administration.

Posted February 28, 2022.