by David Flint
The Berlin Central School District’s proposed construction project received a resounding disapproval from taxpayers in Tuesday’s voting. The count was 820 to 204.
The proposed $19.7 million capital project called for renovating the Berlin Elementary School including ventilation, heating, electrical, plumbing and mechanical work and adding an elevator and handicap accessible bathrooms and six new classrooms there. Work at the high school would include replacing the 1989 roof, porticos over outside doors, removing the stage in the middle school cafeteria and renovating the Home & Career rooms for ADA compliance.
The Voters Have Spoken
School Board President Frank Zwack put a positive spin on the project’s defeat. “It’s what we were looking for,” he said, “to have the taxpayers weigh in on this and help drive the answers to the questions that are before us.” Now, he said, the District will have to look at and formalize all the options and lay them out on the table and feedback from Board members, the community and the Superintendent’s Advisory Group needs to be evaluated in a fair and open forum. He noted that comments from an exit poll conducted by Berlin High School students might also be valuable to see what things voters thought were frivolous or non-essential. He said he would recommend at next week’s Board meeting that the Advisory Group get together and start analyzing the feedback.
Zwack noted that he had learned in discussions of the study group deliberating about disposition of the Stephentown Elementary School that the school buildings have commercial market value and could provide some monetary benefit for the District.
Not A Confrontational Exercise
“This should not be a confrontational exercise,” he said. “It’s not an us versus them situation. It’s about what we can do that is best for the children and affordable for the taxpayers. There is a solution there somewhere. We just need to find it and keep the discussion positive.”
Work Needs To Be Done
Andrew Zlotnick of Petersburgh, one of many residents who had opposed the project, agreed with Zwack that there is work that needs to be done and solutions are out there. The challenge is finding the right solution. He said the lopsided vote definitely had sent a message and that the Board and the administration now need to take a realistic look at what needs to be done. He added that it’s not the dollar amount that a lot of people were opposed to, it is that they just didn’t agree with what the administration was trying to do. He thought most of those voting no were glad the project was defeated but they realize that something needs to be done and they would prefer it be done in one package, not leaving some pieces dangling such as the District administrative offices and work at the bus garage. People, he said, were told that they would be getting a new school with no maintenance needed for 20 years, but they knew that the high cost of the project still did not include addressing the issue of an aging boiler at the Berlin Elementary School or the slate roof that dates back to 1936. They realized, he said, that they were probably looking at not $19.7 million but probably a cost of $29 million. Not only did they feel the costs were exorbitant – $400 per square foot versus $200 to $230 per square foot for construction in other schools such as Williamstown Elementary, Taconic Hills and Mt. Greylock – but they also wanted to explore other options such as possibly keeping the elementary kids nearby but tuitioning out the high school students to other districts that can educate them at a lower cost per student.
New Blood Needed
Zlotnick said a new Superintendent’s Advisory Group is needed that includes people with different backgrounds and not just the same old group that he said either work for or are beholden in some way to the School District. A lot of smart people are now engaged, he said, who have a lot to bring to the table, people such as Heinz Noeding of Petersburgh, a retired financial expert who researched and presented some very telling facts and figures on comparative construction and education costs. Zlotnick said the Board and administration should request resumes from those interested in serving on a new advisory panel and select people with certain talents for specific committees.
“We are not done here,” he said. “We have a long way to go.”