Building Commission Agrees On Suggestions To School Board

By Jeff White

The Newtown Public Building and Site Commission now has more focus concerning the recommendations it wants to make to the school board concerning the district’s proposed fifth and sixth grade school.

A letter from Superintendent of Schools John R. Reed asked the commission to look at several design issues facing the 5/6 school for “specific feedback,” including questions on building material, generator use, and the best way to heat the finished facility. In its meeting Tuesday night, July 29, the commission took up these issues and agreed on the feedback it will give at the school board’s meeting next Tuesday night.

The commission voted to recommend more cost-effective wood trusses be used for the school’s roof rather than steel. The use of steel would have added $112,200 to the project’s budget.

 The commission plans to recommend that the school board use a full size generator for all of its power needs – including heat, refrigeration, and egress lighting – in an effort to eliminate the reliance on battery packs. Dom Posca, the Building and Grounds Supervisor for all Newtown schools, explained that battery packs are a “headache” and more expensive to use.

Duel fuel capacity boilers were also addressed, and the commission voted to recommend they be used instead of single gas boilers.

The commission also agreed to support the school board’s decision to use “fin tube radiation” to heat the new school.

Although the school board made decisions at its last meeting concerning items that needed to be addressed for the project to move forward from the design phase, the commission’s suggestions this week will help to eventually tighten the project’s overall plan.

Frank Krasnickas, the commission’s chairman, has been down this road before, with school district projects at the high school and over at Hawley Elementary. Mr Krasnickas said this week that although it is hard to tell whether the 5/6 school would go smoothly, he was confident, largely due to the school district’s choice to side with a project manager rather than a construction manager.

 The project manager, Strategic Building Solutions (SBS), serves as an intermediary between the building commission and the school board, essentially acting as the town’s representative in the 5/6 school project.

We’ve had “very good communication,” Mr Krasnickas said of the commission’s work with SBS. The firm was present at the building and site commission’s July meeting, helping the group walk through it’s recommendations to the school board.

The role of the Public Building and Site Commission in the 5/6 school project is an official one. “We work under the direction of the first selectman and the Board of Education, and we make recommendations to the Board of Education, and we also process all of the applications and bills of payments,” Mr Krasnickas explained.

The 5/6 school will be back on the school board’s agenda next Tuesday, as it will look to weigh the Public Building and Site Commission’s recommendation in the effort to bring the 5/6 project further into focus.