The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously on Monday evening to put a vote for a debt exclusion to pay for the construction of a new Wellington Elementary before town voters in a special election slated for June 8. The vote was unanimous in favor of setting June 8 as the date for the debt exclusion vote, though the meeting was anything but harmonious.
While Selectmen Ralph Jones and Dan LeClerc both voiced their unambiguous support for the Wellington project, Selectman Angelo Firenze took issue with a number of elements of the plan. Those issues include a discrepency between the estimated price per square foot for construction of the new school ($296) and a target price used by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) ($275), relocation costs (estimated at around $3m) and the return on investment for energy efficiency features that are part of the current design.
Saying that the town had a spotty record on cost control when it came to captial projects (though the last major School project, the Chenery, is a noted exception), Selectman Firenze suggested a Selectmen’s liason be appointed to the Wellington Building Committee with the ability to report back on the progress of the project and provide a “strong town perspective” (whatever that means). Though Firenze made clear that this advisor was not to have voting privileges, he wanted the person to have “some voice and input.”
The new proposal came as news to fellow Selectmen LeClerc and Jones, with LeClerc raising serious reservations about a liason with veto power over building and design decisions — a development that would almost certainly cause construction to slow and costs to balloon.
Still, with Firenze’s support of the debt exclusion on the line and no serious opposition from the Building Committee itself (which already has two liasons to the School Department), it looks likely that a Selectmen’s liason – in some form – will get the green light.
After that, it was all over but the voting — as the Wellington Building Committee made clear that planning for the new school would not commence until after a debt exclusion has passed, and the sooner the better. With a drought of construction projects out to bid in the current market, but a likely flood of projects as federal stimulus dollars trickle down, Belmont stands to gain tremendously from getting its proposal in order as quickly as possible.