ALTAMONT - Work started on Brandle Meadows over the summer and a suit brought against the project this fall won't slow it down, says developer Jeff Thomas.

Rapp Construction Management, the company first hired by Thomas to manage his senior housing project, located just outside the village on Brandle Road, has filed court papers claiming that Thomas hasn't paid for its services.

A lien was docketed on Oct. 2 in the Albany County Clerk's office, the papers say, for a total amount of $91,495.26, a sum that includes $76,246.05 for goods and services not paid for, plus interest.
An invoice included in the court papers lists what the charges are that make up the roughly $76,000 tab. On the list are things like "field office supplies" for $1,042 and "copies of plans and project documents" for $874.52. The largest component, "principle's time - Joseph Rapp" for $38,900, covered 389 hours of work at a rate of $100 per hour.

The hours accumulated over the course of about two-and-a-half months; a contract between Brandle Meadows and Rapp Construction Management was signed on May 18 and Thomas terminated the agreement in a letter dated July 25.
In the letter, Thomas cites a section of the contract that states: "This Agreement may be terminated by the Owner for convenience after seven (7) days written notice to the CM." In that case, a later paragraph says, the construction manager is entitled to an additional 20 percent "of the total compensation earned."
Joseph Rapp would not speak about the suit because it is in litigation, he said. "We didn't get paid," he said. "So we liened the property."
"We believe we paid him everything and then some," Thomas said yesterday. He changed the construction manager, to Bette and Cring, last summer, he said, because the project hadn't been moving fast enough. It should be an 18-month project, he said, and phase one should be completed this spring.

Nine buildings will makeup the 72-unit project that will sit on land once owned by the Altamont Fair. The project had been held up due to municipal water problems, but is now underway.