2022-01-26-AC-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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01/26/2022 AC Minutes • A transparent study with a consultant should help keep residents informed, incorporating their suggestions and responding to concerns throughout the process. • The land use issues should be identified sooner than later because some of them will take time to address. • This would be a public process with identified criteria. The consultant would work with and support the Town Manager's working group that was recently created to look into sites for a new high school. Additional comments made by the Article 25 proponents in response to questions and comments, included the following: • A consultant can compile a list of all the funding, including CPA funds, that has gone into projects in the identified area. • The Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA)requires communities seeking financial assistance for school projects, to consider renovating as well as rebuilding. Renovating tends to be inefficient, and to take more time than rebuilding. • The extent of the high school project won't be known until after the feasibility study required by the MSBA as part of its process. • The study proposed in this article is expected to be an eight-month process, with an interim report being brought to a fall 2022 town meeting. It would be groundwork for the feasibility study. • It is expected that the Department of Public Facilities would follow its standard process for issuing a request for proposals for hiring and overseeing a consultant. This has traditionally included oversight by the PBC. • As initially proposed, the requested funding for Article 25 will be $175,000. The recommended budget does not include this funding. Ancillary costs should be included. Ms. Kosnoff added that there is $500,000 in unallocated free cash in the budget that could be used. • The Worthen Road area is about 54 acres; there doesn't appear to be another large enough area of Town-owned land that could accommodate a new high school. • This needs to be a collaborative effort with staff and relevant committees, which is consistent with the recent effort to reach out to stakeholders. • A committee to oversee the process could be established, although this is not included in the article. Committee members expressed concerns and comments that included the following: • The article should not restrict the study to the Worthen Road area. Other locations may be needed, particularly during construction. The wording of the article should not limit the scope of the project. • It isn't clear how the logistics would work since this is a citizen's article without the backing of the Town Manager and Select Board. • Hiring a consultant appears to overlap efforts of the working group that was recently established by the Town Manager to look at the issues. It is critical that the process be collaborative and not combative or competitive. • It isn't clear why a consultant should do this work rather than using Town staff. Why is one more efficient than the other? The concept must be justified if it is going to be supported by Town Meeting. 2