Surplus to fund Paul Revere acquisition; culvert repair

REVERE – Mayor Thomas Ambrosino wants to spend a $1.8 million city surplus on assembling a site for a new Paul Revere School and to pay off the repair bill for a collapsed culvert near American Legion Highway.The City Council voted last year to spend $1 million acquiring land for a new elementary school. Ambrosino said adding $815,000 to that amount will provide enough money to allow the city to buy private lots and relocate their owners.Current city plans call for building Paul Revere in 2009, one year after construction of the Rumney Marsh Academy, now underway, and two years before construction is to start on a new McKinley School.He wants to spend $400,000 in surplus money to help cover the $880,000 culvert repair cost. The remainder of the repair expense has already been paid by the city.The collapse posed major problems for the city because the 24-inch pipe carried sewage from the eastern side of Revere, including Point of Pines, to pipe connections along American Legion Highway near where Rumney is being built.The collapse occurred last March at a point along the culvert where it ran underneath the commuter rail tracks near the New England Confectionary Company.A company specializing in underground drain work laid temporary drain lines and installed pumps while RF Walsh, the contractor overseeing construction of the new middle school near Revere High School, began overseeing the culvert’s reconstruction.Contractors think the culvert was built on top of wood timbers and other debris and gradually sunk under its own weight into the unstable material.Ambrosino wants to allocate $225,000 in surplus money to pay for renovations in City Hall auditorium. Plans call for renovating the sizeable space in preparation for a City Hall technology upgrade that will include creating space for an information technology center, storage, a printing room and a training center.