By Jarret Liotta
At the behest of First Selectman Jim Marpe, an accelerated rehabilitation plan for Coleytown Middle School (CMS) was presented to the Board of Education (BOE) tonight by Peter Ratkiewich, director of public works, aimed at getting it opened for the 2020-21 school year.
Peter Ratkiewich, public works director, tells the Board of Education about the rehabilitation plans. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Jarret Liotta for WestportNow.com
Sidestepping the RFP process and foregoing state reimbursement opportunities are among the sacrifices the town will have to make to keep the tight timeline, Ratkiewich said, in order to execute a project that he quoted Board of Finance (BOF) Chairman Brian Stern as estimating in the range of $10-20 million.
“That’s a very broad range, but I don’t think it’s gonna be under 10,” said Ratkiewich, who is initially requesting a $400,000 appropriation to get the ball rolling and will do so at Thursday’s BOF meeting.
“Part of the $400,000 upfront … is to retain a hygienist, independent of the design team, independent of the construction team … to insure that we have good conditions,” he said.
“By the end of May we expect to have a fairly refined budget, based on the schematics … We’re basically going to be refining the price as we move forward,” he said.
There was some sense among board members — and a couple members of the public — that the efforts to restore CMS had been usurped from the BOE, prompting questions of exactly how much input it would have in terms of the work.
“By state statute it is within our realm of authority to maintain those buildings,” said BOE member Neil Phillips, joining others in a request that they receive sound updates on the process.
“My phone is blowing up,” Youn Su Chao, Coleytown Elementary School PTA co-president said during public comment. “”Parents are very concerned. I think they’re feeling like everything has been taken away from the Board of Ed.”
“I think we’re talking about rehabilitating a building where people have questions about even the possibility of it being rehabilitated,” said Second Selectman Jennifer Tooker, who appeared with Ratkiewich.
“All of us have an obligation to communicate differently on this project,” she said, indicating it would be a priority from the town side.
Ratkiewich said Sue Chipouras, who served as project manager on both the Saugatuck Elementary and Staples High School building projects was interviewed on Friday, indicating she was the likely choice for this project.
BOE member Karen Kleine was voted to serve as an ex officio member of the CMS Building Committee, which will guide the project in cooperation with the project manager.
Ratkiewich said part of fast-tracking the plan centers on hiring the two firms that conducted a peer review of the initial engineering and architectural reports that were commissioned by the BOE following the evacuation of CMS.
“We’d like these folks to hit the ground running in about a week, week and a half,” he said, referencing Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc., of Shelton, and Kohler Ronan, LLC, of New York and Danbury, representatives of which presented to the BOE on Jan. 28 and indicated that restoration of the building might not be as extreme — or as costly — as was indicated in the initial reports.
“This schedule does not allow at all going for state funding … We feel that would extend the project by a year,” Ratkiewich said.
Likewise, the BOE voted unanimously to forego a chance to get any state reimbursement money for portable classrooms at Bedford Middle School (BMS), and commissioned Elio Longo, chief financial officer, to move forward with the purchase of six to be outfitted for up to two years.
“Time is of the essence,” Longo said, explaining that according to vendors he’s spoken with, a number of communities are placing order for summer deliveries of portables.
“My personal view is that we’ve been encouraged to proceed as quickly as possible,” said Chairman Mark Mathias.
“I think we’re all sensitive to what all the parents have been saying in the emails, that overcrowding is going to be a problem at Bedford,” Jack Klinge, a District 7 member of the Representative Town Meeting, told the BOE in public comment.
“Think about being a little more creative,” he said, suggesting they may need more space in the way of portables or even use of Staples High School’s extra classrooms.
“I think you’d find a lot of support among seventh grade parents … to keep eighth grade at Staples,” said Lee Goldstein, PTA co-president at CMS.
While the BOE spent some time debating the idea, Superintendent of Schools Colleen Palmer was relatively firm on the impracticality of it in her estimation, also noting it would require more changes in staff planning.
The BOE also voted unanimously to adopt the 6-8 middle school plan officially in the wake of its failure to get a larger amount of funding approved for 14 portables to augment its K-6 plan.
“We had a pivot last week, a pretty major pivot,” Mathias said, noting a separate building committee is also going to be needed to oversee installation of the portables at BMS.
Looking ahead to the implementation of the new plan, BOE member Karen Kleine expressed hope it would be a smoother and more practically managed than the K-6 plan initially seemed to be.
“The way that the K-to-6 model unfolded left a lot to be desired,” she said.
“It just seemed to get more and more complicated as things went on (and) I’m just wondering if there’s a way we can gather all the loose ends,” she said, such as parent parking, lockers, and other particulars, “and have someone on it … making sure these things are being implemented the way we want them to be implemented.”
“I would suggest that someone on the board needs to be a little more involved in how this rolls out,” Kleine said.
Palmer said her executive assistant, Jennifer Caputo, was often tasked with serving in a project manager capacity behind the scenes and could be involved.
“I think we’re equipped to handle this going forward,” Palmer said.
