Board Chairman Presses For

School Architect

By Jeff White

In her strongest public statement concerning the fifth- and sixth-grade school to date, newly-elected Board of Education Chairman Elaine McClure urged the Legislative Council Tuesday night to consider expediting their approval for the funding of architect fees.

“I think the thing that I find important is the fact that I don’t know if our school system can wait until we have a complete verdict on Fairfield Hills,” Mrs McClure said. “I think we have demonstrated very strongly the need for more space… We strongly urge the council to consider the architect’s fees, so even if the site changes we can have the architect’s fees approved by the council.”

The school board voted last month to go before the council and ask for $2,608,000 in funding, which would pay for the demolition of Watertown Hall, a construction manager, the hiring of a hazardous materials consultant and land surveys, among other things. Slightly more than one-million dollars of those requested funds would be set aside for architect’s fees paid to Hartford firm Jeter, Cook and Jepson (JCJ), whose conceptual design the board reviewed at December’s workshop meeting.

School officials feel that whether or not the council will approve architect funding is a decision that can be made in the next few weeks without necessarily committing the town to the proposed 5/6 school on the Watertown Hall site.

Superintendent of Schools John Reed remarked that architect’s fees would not change should another option for a 5/6 school location at Fairfield Hills arise. The school district would be willing to hold off on finalizing contracts for JCJ until it received complete approval from the council, but it would be important to at least assure JCJ that the district was interested in their business, Dr Reed said.

“These firms come along and they don’t save a place forever waiting for your business,” he said.

From the school district’s perspective, there would still be time for the council to consider the larger 5/6 school issue, most significantly total construction costs, even if they ruled on one aspect right away. The time between a council’s approval of the architect’s funding and the town meeting that would follow, approximately two weeks, would give decision makers time to consider other options and “tie a bow around” the proposal.

Dr Reed said that he believed the council would have reason to deliberate for 30 days in making their final decisions about the school’s funding, but they could still support the architect.

“Let’s hire the architect, because who’s kidding who? The school is going on Watertown Hall, or somebody is going to rather quickly make another suggestion,” he said. “Rather than waiting until the middle of February to get [this conclusion], and then starting the architect process, we can capture the architect now.”

He added in support of the council’s desire to see all of the project’s costs up front, “I’m not afraid of saying to the architect, ‘look, get your three different estimates, because the number we’re voting on, we have to live with.’”

Having the architect on board now would allow for the finalization of design plans and specifications, and expedite onsite construction once final approvals are received from the council. “In February if anything changes, we’ll still have the architect, we are ready to build our building, and hopefully open by 2002 September,” Mrs McClure said.

The school board delivered a phase-one impact study listing the incremental operating costs for a new school to the council Wednesday. Council Chairman Pierre Rochman said in a letter to the board of education that the funding request would be passed to the finance committee for review and would be addressed at the council’s January 19 meeting.

The Legislative Council has said that the school board would have to present a strong case as to why it should not put off the 5/6 school decision until the fate of Fairfield Hills was determined.