Marblehead school board votes to appoint construction firm officials

MARBLEHEAD – The School Committee voted 3-1 to approve Patrick Saitta as owner?s project manager for the $25.4 million Glover School project and Charles “Chuck” Adams as project manager, at a cost of $984,000 during a sometimes-heated hour-long meeting Wednesday morning.Both men work for Municipal Building Consultants Inc.The debate was prompted by Saitta and Adams? work on the $11 million Village School. Originally under budget, the Village School project added an estimated $5 million in change orders – but the Massachusetts School Building Authority is only reimbursing the town for $1.1 million of the total. The remaining $4 million will come from the bond issue that funded the project.School Committee member Dick Nohelty, who has agreed to co-chair the Glover School Building Committee with Robert Schaeffner, told the committee that choosing other consultants to oversee the project at this time would delay the project six months, three months for the bidding process and another three months for newcomers to acclimate themselves.?The MSBA has advised us to get to bids (for the school construction firm) sooner rather than later, to take advantage of the economic climate,” Nohelty said.Thomas Connolly, who was elected to the committee in May, voted against the appointments. “Under no circumstances will I support this,” Connolly said. “I think it?s worth the delay instead of telling people, ?Oops, they messed up before but?”Vice Chairman Jonathan Lederman, who chaired the meeting, told Connolly he was conflicted on the matter. Lederman, Kathy Leonardson and Nohelty voted in support of the appointments.The reaction to Connolly?s comments made several references to a closed-door meeting Monday between Schaeffner, Nohelty, Saitta and new Superintendent of Schools Gregory Maass, in which Maass discussed the change order issue with Saitta. Nohelty invited Connolly to join the building committee, which has an opening for an additional School Committee member.Pointing out that he has “no emotional attachment” to the Village School project, Maass told the committee that in his view what happened was related to “roles and responsibilities,” and that the School Committee should have been informed of change orders and other matters in a timely fashion.Maass also told the committee that he has spoken with MSBA Director of Capital Planning Mary Pichetti, who sent the School Committee a letter critical of the Village School process but told Maass that Marblehead was the first community state-wide to be critical of Municipal Building Consultants Inc.