School project remains controversial
The Uniontown Area school directors again faced a barrage of public comment at the regular meeting Monday night concerning the district’s proposed $43.5 million high school renovation and construction project. The board heard from residents concerned with every aspect of the project, including the possibility of increased taxes and architect Mark Altman’s plans for a new idea.
It was announced to the public that the board would be holding another meeting slated for Thursday, May 25, at 6:30 p.m. to discuss new plans to not demolish the 1910-11 section of the school, instead leaving it a freestanding structure, and continue with plans for a new gymnasium, auditorium and the addition of a four-story classroom tower.
Much of the project opposition from both residents and several board members have resulted from the high price tag of the project, which they say is more than the district has in a bank account to spend.
Board President Ron Machesky noted that the district’s debt limit is $80 million and the school district’s current debt is $68 million.
“We can borrow $21 million (more) to make sure this project gets done,” he said to groans from numerous residents.
Machesky said he was in favor of school Director Ken Meadows’ motion made Monday night to scale back the project, noting, “just because you have a credit card, that doesn’t mean you max it out.”
Meadows made a motion to scale the project back to a cost not to exceed $30 million and to use the money left over in the bank to renovate Lafayette and Ben Franklin schools. His motion also included rejecting all current bids for the project.
School Director Harry “Dutch” Kaufman said that he and his fellow board members are friends, but he disagrees with Meadows’ motion, which failed by a 5-4 vote along the same split vote experienced in the past.
Kaufman said the district has already paid $2 million in debt service toward the cost of the project and has a total of $42 million to spend on the project, $35 million in the bank and $7 million from a no-interest loan.
He also said that as the district goes onto pay their debt, as they have been doing, the capacity for borrowing increases.
“No one wants to max out a credit card, but we know there’s money available,” said Kaufman.
Kaufman said his major concerns lie with how a change of plans could affect the contractors who submitted bids on parts of the project in April.
“The problem with re-bidding is losing credibility with the contractors,” Kaufman said. “We could end up with higher bids and less money in the long run.”
Kaufman said contractors, many who live in the Uniontown area, have put a lot of money into designing the bids.
Responding to Kaufman’s statements, Mary Ellen Snyder of Farmington said contractors should respect and accept the news that the school directors boss – the taxpayers – have given them new information that affects the project.
“We should not worry about pleasing them. They should want your business,” Snyder told Kaufman.
Past plans for the project called for a new gymnasium and locker and team rooms to be built on the existing parking lot on Grant Street next to the swimming pool; a three-story addition with a kitchen on the ground floor, with music and art departments on the second floor and with district administrative offices on the top floor (current administrative offices are located inside Central School on East Church Street); and demolition of the area of the school west of the auditorium to make room for the three-story addition as well as additional parking.
On each level of the academic wing, departments would be clustered, with the English department to be located adjacent to the reconfigured library and all the science rooms located on the same level, according to a March 2005 article that quoted Altman and detailed project plans.
In the article, Altman said the renovated school will be awash in natural light, a marked difference from the current state of the building, and the building will have improved electrical systems, technology capabilities, heating systems and will be fully air-conditioned.
He also said the new gym, expected to seat 2,000 people, will hold three basketball courts that can be separated by curtains. Locker rooms for teams and for physical education classes will be built underneath the gym, he said.
An improved auditorium was proposed to include rebuilt seats, handicapped-accessible seating, construction of an orchestra pit and improved acoustics. The changes to the auditorium would require removing nearly 200 seats, bringing the capacity to just fewer than 1,200 people, Altman said.
According to the article, the plans were designed to eliminate sprawl, which currently occurs since the school is divided into two halves where students must either go outside to get to one side or the other or travel through an upstairs hallway, and were the result of meetings with department heads and administration.
The work was previously scheduled to start in January of this year, with students slated to be in the academic wing at the start of the 2007-08 school year and the entire project to be complete by early 2009.
But, numerous delays have occurred since that time, and contracts for the project have yet to be awarded.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE), building plans for the project have been approved by the PDE for PlanCon A-E. PlanCon F is in the review phase and the PDE is working with the district to finalize that plan, according to a spokesperson with the PDE.
According to the PDE, PlanCon, an acronym for Planning and Construction Workbook, is a set of forms and procedures used to apply for commonwealth reimbursement, which the school district is seeking for the project.
The school district has five more stages to complete after PlanCon Part F, including the next stage, Part G, which will determine the project’s eligibility for reimbursement and possibly how the project will impact taxes.