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Wlaf1450TOP PHOTO: Campbell County Board of Education Attorney Dail Cantrell, left, and Lewis Group Architect Jake Thomas addressed the BOE at Tuesday’s meeting about moving forward with pay application 9 for work done by GCE construction on the Jacksboro Elementary School.
By Charlotte Underwood
JACKSBORO, TN (WLAF)- At its Tuesday evening meeting, the Campbell County Board of Education voted to write a check for “pay application 9” to GCE Construction regarding the ongoing construction project at Jacksboro Elementary School. Work for this pay application was completed in November and December. This is the first payment the board has made to the company in the 2026 year due to legal disagreements between the board and GCE.
Board attorney Dail Cantrell and Jake Thomas from Lewis Group, the project’s architect, addressed the board Tuesday evening.
Cantrell said he had been on a conference call with Lewis Group and their legal counsel on Friday and that they had discussed “a proposal that GCE’s attorney had made.”
Cantrell said GCE’s attorney was Tony Hill and that Hill could not be at Tuesday’s meeting due to a family situation but still wanted Cantrell to submit the proposal to the BOE.
“I ran this by Jake (Thomas) so if you all had any questions, he could address those, but I think it is a good proposal,” Cantrell said. He told the board that nothing had been paid since the holdup with pay application 9, and that “multiple meetings had been held to address that.”
According to Cantrell, “at the last board meeting” he had suggested he “did not know why” GCE had never accepted the idea of accepting payment on “reservation of rights”, meaning GCE could say items were in dispute and the same for the school board and those items could then be taken up in mediation.
“As soon as we did that at the public meeting, I got an email in two days from their new counsel saying they absolutely would take payment with reservation of rights,” Cantrell said.
He told the board that they need to get pay application 9 moving and that a mediator had been selected, but mediation dates had not.
“As soon as I have dates, I will send you all an email and we’re going to address issues at the mediation like the gym floor, the failure to mitigate on the gym floor $145,000 that is going to be added to the total that GCE owes you, and hopefully address pay applications 10, 11 and 12 and 13, but pay ap 9 is essential,” Cantrell said.
According to Cantell, who confirmed it with the architect, it is a “hollow core plank that was the initial issue causing $100,000 in question for pay application 9.
Cantrell said “there is a lot more work that has been done that we could pay for, but we have to keep it in line with the work that has been done.”
Thomas with Lewis Group explained to do this, the $100,000 in question could be moved to concrete and since the November, December meeting, all the concrete work has been completed with nothing left on that line item.
“What we are proposing is to take pay application 9, remove the dispute that was there, with the reservation of rights to declare at mediation, and the number would stay the same, it’s $188,000 and some change, that would stay the same, but the concrete would now take the place in pay ap 9 and would make up the aggregate of the $188,000 and we would mediate these other issues,” Cantrell said. Doing this will get pay application 9 done, allowing the architect to continue and “look at pay application 10, and get the other pay applications moving.
“We just can’t take these pay apps out of order, because there is no way for accountability. Under our contract, if we do this, now if they don’t complete work, you have the authority to terminate and hire someone else. Because technically, we have to address pay application 9 before we could address termination for failure to complete the job, because pay app 9 is pending, it is owed, this is a solution that I am in favor of,” Cantrell said.
Board Chairman Jeffrey Miller confirmed it was on the recommendation of both Cantrell and Thomas with Lewis Group and then made the motion to go through with pay application 9, with the reservation of rights for both parties to address issues through mediation.
Board member Brandon Johnson said he wanted to make sure the board was getting all pay apps out as quickly as possible.
Thomas said he would do everything he could to get the account closed out. And that he felt he could get through two pay applications a month. Thomas will also be in attendance at the mediation sessions.
“If we get into a global mediation, this is something the attorney and I have talked about, you know you have a substantial overage account for the liquidated damages, you know it is going to be $145,000 on the gym floor, it’s going to be a set off, it may be we get into mediation and reach a global resolution,” Cantrell said.
Board member Johnson asked Cantrell if the board approved pay application 9, “will GCE go ahead and get back to construction work?”
Cantrell said if they do not go back to work after they have been paid, they are for sure in violation of their contract,” Cantrell said.
Johnson offered to yield time to Emily Gaylor, with GCE Construction, if she had anything to say, but she declined.
Payment for pay application 9 was unanimously approved.
After this was approved, Cantrell asked the board to approve one more item.
“GCE’s attorney has requested that the check be made out to GCE and to their law firm, when the check gets issued, it would go to GCE and their attorneys,” Cantrell said.
This was also unanimously approved.
After the meeting was adjourned, Emily Gaylor with GCE Construction provided WLAF with a copy of a Peremptory Writ of Mandamus dated July 27, 2026, from the Campbell County Circuit Court with Circuit Court Judge John McAfee requiring the BOE to “accept, review and act upon the Pay Application 9 submitted by the plaintiff’s” (GCE) in the amount of $188,667.38″.
A certificate of service dated August 31st, 2026, was also provided by Gaylor stating that a copy of the Peremptory Writ of Mandamus was sent to the Cantrell Law firm, the BOE chairman and the director of schools.
Gaylor said that this “legal ruling was why the BOE had approved pay application 9.” (WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-09/09/2026-6AM)