Marblehead School Committee posts ads for Village School work

MARBLEHEAD – Pressed for time, the School Committee has approved advertisements for bids on the work on the Marblehead Village School – 12 days before the election that will decide whether the town will spend the $21.7 million required for the school repair project.School Committee Chair Amy Drinker told her colleagues Thursday night that the committee needed to approve advertising language in advance of the June 17 special election in order to follow the state timeline for the project.The Massachusetts School Building Authority has approved the Village School repairs for 40 percent state reimbursement for this year. Drinker said she was advised to get the ads approved by Michael Rockett of the Facilities Master Plan Committee. The committee voted unanimously to approve the language.Drinker told the committee the Village School project requires the town to get one more year out of the school’s decrepit boilers. “If the override is not approved, we (Marblehead) will go to the back of the line for state funding,” she said.The June 17 special election is to decide whether two-thirds of those voting support debt exclusion overrides for the Village School repairs and the $395,000 feasibility phase of the $22.9 million Glover School construction project, which will also be eligible for state reimbursement.The committee also approved the makeup and some of the members for the 11-member Glover project School Building Committee, also a state mandate.The committee will include School Committee member Patricia Blackmer, Superintendent of Schools Paul Dulac, School Committee member Richard Nohelty (as a school parent), Glover-Eveleth Principal Mary Devlin, the director of facilities and school business manager, Capital Planning Committee reperesentative Victor Wild, a teacher, a Finance Committee member and local residents David L. Bennet, an architect, and Robert Schaeffner.School Committee Chair Amy Drinker and Town Planner Becky Curran will serve on the committee ex officio.