Above: Town Meeting voters overwhelmingly approved borrowing $4.5M to replace Neary School’s failing roof this summer. (images cropped from flyers)
Voters at tonight’s Special Town Meeting on the future of Southborough Schools overwhelmingly voted to fund replacing Neary School’s roof. They also voted to spend $175K to study two options for potential renovation projects for school improvements.
As for the studies on potential alternative renovations to expand Finn School or Finn and Trottier Middle School, the overwhelming majority voted No.
Notably only about ⅓ of the number of voters who attended the Special Town Meeting on the New Neary Project last spring showed up to tonight’s meeting. Without big crowds, check in was quick, and the meeting began on time, shortly after 6:00 pm. And, despite complicated Articles, business was completed in less than two hours.
With permission from voters, Select Board Chair Andrew Dennington and Superintendent Greg Martineau spent about 15 minutes explaining the four Articles up front. That included the Select Board’s and School Committee’s positions and reasoning. (You can see their slides here. [Editor’s Note: Despite what I learned and updated this morning, the Select Board’s slides weren’t revised.])
Immediately following the presentations, Beth Wittcoff (the former PreK-8 Building Study Committee Chair) made a motion to amend language in Article 1. Her change focused on the 2nd of two building study options the Article asked to be funded:
Option 2: A plan to address the deferred maintenance items and necessary improvements to extend the practical life of the current Neary School by 15 years.
Said plan shall include the following items: (a) a new or repaired roof; (b) ADA compliance; (c) removal and/or containment of asbestos; (d) a fire suppression system; (e) maintenance and component replacement of HVAC system; (f) pointing and repair of exterior brick and concrete. Option 2 shall target a cost that does not exceed $15,000,000.00 less the cost of the roof and/or ADA compliance Option 2 will be code compliant. if otherwise appropriated; or to do or act anything in relation thereto.
She added the phrase “to meet minimum code compliance”.
Unfortunately, it took about 15 minutes to get the motion on the screen. At that point, Wittcoff argued for a full renovation of Neary and objected to Option 2’s limitations. Select Board member Al Hamilton countered that based on birthrate trends, he believes that the Town may not need a new school beyond another 15 years. That is why he pushed to include the cost assessment of a less expensive, shorter term option for voters to consider.
John Butler highlighted that lack of options was one of the arguments made by voters who struck down the New Neary project last May. He argued that for the Town to be able to move forward with getting a building project funded, it need to present voters with options to choose from.
Mark Davis (a former Neary Building Committee and PreK-8 Building Study Committee member) argued in favor of Wittcoff’s motion. He asserted that the itemized costs under Option 1 would give the Town full details to pull the items. There was no need for a focused study.
Advisory Committee member Andrew Pfaff later pointed out that the change would actually reduce the amount of work done under Option 2 making it a cheaper option. Advisory member Howard Rose agreed with Pfaff. He also rebutted Davis’ comment, noting that the point of Option 2 was to give the consultant direction for putting together a lower budget version “without going overboard”.
By a vote of hands, a clear majority of voters struck down the motion to amend. Soon after, that was followed by a majority vote in favor of Article 1.
For Articles 2 and 3, the majorities of the Select Board and Advisory Committee (and unanimous School Committee) argued against spending on the studies and pointed to issues on the sites that made the feasibility of projects questionable. In the minority, Select Board member Tim Fling and Advisory’s Erik Glaser, who both also served on the PreK-8 Building Study Committee, spoke in favor of studying the projects that the committee had identified as potential building solutions. They advocated for giving voters more options.
In votes by electronic “clicker”, the vast majority opposed funding the studies. Article 2 (to study small expansions at Finn and Trottier) failed 66 to 332. Article 3 to study a larger expansion of Finn failed 75 to 332.
Unlike the prior Articles, which were moved “as written in the Warrant”, Article 4 was modified. The motion made was $2.35M less than the Warrant Article, and no longer included studies and ADA work. Instead it simply asked:
that the Town will vote to borrow and appropriate the sum of $4,500,000 for the purpose of funding costs associated with the replacement or repair of the roof at Margaret A. Neary Elementary School.
School Committee Chair Chelsea Malinowski wanted to ask the room if they needed the presentation on Neary’s roof. Moderator Paul Cimino said he would give voters a chance to comment and ask questions, then come back to her if she wanted to have the presentation before the vote. (That didn’t prove necessary. No one questioned the roof condition.)
There were questions about why the motion was changed and the impact. Cimino explained that the Warrant is the topic of the Article, but the motion is the wording actually voted on. (And no vote was needed on an amendment, because the revised wording was presented as their original motion.) The Select Board, School Committee, and Advisory confirmed their strong unanimous support for the Article as moved.
Officials explained that the ADA language and money had only been included in the Warrant version in case Article 1 failed. They had always planned to make a motion limited to the roof replacement if Article 1 passed.
The ADA work will be studied under Article 1, and would be incorporated into a renovation project. Malinowski confirmed that even if the work is “triggered” as required by the roof expense, the Town has three years and can show the state that they are taking the necessary steps. She also highlighted that if ADA compliance was tackled before a renovation work, it would have to be redone during renovations.
Elyse Ocnos was concerned about the impact of the roof project taking place this summer “when school is closed”. She noted that parents have already been paying to register kids in Southborough Extended Day Program’s summer camp held at Neary each summer. Asst. Superintendent of Operations Keith Lavoie reassured that the camp will be relocated to another Southborough school. He promised that it wouldn’t interrupt the SEDP summer programming.
Upon questioning by Butler, Select Board member Kathy Cook confirmed that the $4.5M borrowing for the roof will be on the ballot to ask voters to approve a debt-exclusion. Butler later followed up to ask the impact of that vote failing. He noted that the motion wasn’t worded to make the borrowing “subject” to the ballot passing. He didn’t know if the Town could later fit that under the levy cap. Town Counsel stated that the Town would only be able to fund the amount that it could squeeze in under the cap.
It’s unclear how that would work, since the ballot vote is in May — too late to adjust the budget for the Annual Town Meeting that is held in April. However, Cook made clear that given the dire need to replace the roof, the Select Board didn’t believe they’ll have a problem getting the simple majority vote needed in the election.
Amanda Rosenberg wanted to know the plan and associated costs if the Article fails and the roof fails. Malinowski responded that if the roof blew off they would be in crisis mode. They would probably add modulars to the other schools until a permanent solution was found. That would cost $1M per year.
No one argued against funding the expense. The electronic vote in favor of replacing the roof passed 377 to 33.
