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TOWN OF LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS
PERMANENT BUILDING COMMITTEE
Minutes of Wednesday August 22. 2001 meeting at the Lexington High School Library,
as approved December 13, 2001
Chairman Peter Kelley called the meeting to order at 7.25 p.m. with other PBC members,
William Kennedy,Nick Canalonga, Peter Johnson, Jonathan Himmel and Mary Lou
Touart present. Also attending were Bill Kealy, Project Manager, Richard White, Town
Manager, John Moynihan, Director of Facilities, School Committee member, Tony
Close, Klaus Kleinschmidt, CAA, Bill Leahy, of Palmer and Dodge, and Pip Lewis from
HMFH.
The focus of the meeting was the outfitting often classrooms at the Diamond Middle
School to accommodate hearing-impaired students.
Engineer and Designer. Klaus Kleinschmidt discussed how he was trying to alter the
acoustics of the classrooms. He explained that the two issues that are being addressed
with the changes he advised are reverberation and noise. He is hoping to reach a low
reverberation time of.3 seconds and a 35 DBA.
Kleinschmidt noted that it is more costly to achieve a lower noise level than lower
reverberation time. He went on to explain that there are often misunderstandings on the
size of the ventilation units. It is often assumed that a smaller unit will be quieter, when
in fact, a larger unit turned on low with a box surrounding it, produces less noise.
When questioned about a standard for noise and reverberation quality, Kleinschmidt said
that a Federal standard has not yet been adopted and is probably 7 years away from being
approved. He does not know of other institutions that have or are working to attain the
same standards. He knows that MIT has been able to create a room that has reached a
DBA of 40.
It was asked if it would be acceptable to make the same modifications at Diamond that
were made at the Maria Hastings School. P Lewis said that a study done by Cavanaugh
and Tocci in 1999 found that the conditions at Hastings were not acceptable. J Himmel
inquired if once the standard is met will the standard have to be achieved each year.
When asked if testing is required to determine if the changes meet the standard once the
job is completed, Kleinschmidt answered that it was not necessary to do so.
B. Leahy clarified two occasions whereby an organization could bypass operating under
public bidding laws when hiring a contractor First,when there is an incidental change
and the new contractor is subsidiary to the main contractor, and if the cost of the work is
no more than 10%of the original contract. Second, in the case of an emergency,
although approval is needed in advance from the State.
To make the necessary changes to the rooms will cost in excess of one million dollars. J.
Himmel asked where the money would be coining from. R. White stated that money was
never appropriated for this project.
A CCD has been issued and the Contractor was instructed to begin work on the
classrooms. The committee objected to this in that they had not authorized the work.
Although a Change Order has been issued it has not been signed.
The Manager and the PBC had not been aware the "go-ahead" was given and the
Manager said he plans to address the financial issue immediately
B. Kennedy made motion to adjourn the meeting and M. Touart seconded. All were in
agreement.
P Kelley adjourned the meeting at 8:45 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
)dAr
Cara P Shapiro
Project Manager's Office