PEABODY — School Committee members disagreed sharply at Tuesday’s committee meeting on whether the vacant Kiley School should be demolished, and if the city could afford to demolish the building with urgent needs at a number of other schools.
Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt, Jr., who serves as chair of the committee but was absent Tuesday, asked the City Council to approve a $1 million bond to demolish the school and a DPW building located on Berry Street. In a Dec. 2 letter to the council Bettencourt referred to the bond as “the first step in the development of both sites for reuse and potential revenue generation.” The bond request is on Thursday night’s Finance Committee meeting agenda.
“The School Committee never voted to authorize anyone, let alone the mayor to ask the City Council for a bond to demolish the Kiley School. That’s a fact,” said Committee member Beverly Griffin Dunne.
The discussion between School Committee members grew heated at times, particularly between Dunne and Building and Grounds Subcommittee Chair Jarrod Hochman. The duo had also sparred on the same issue at the committee’s Jan. 10 meeting.
“I was upset at the last meeting and still am upset. We have never made any determination about what to do with this building,” said Dunne, adding that the proposal to demolish the building “came out of thin air” and that any decision to demolish is “premature.”
Hochman said he “respectfully disagreed” with Dunne’s position, saying the school has been vacant for five and a half years and is “falling down.”
“I am afraid it will collapse and hurt someone,” Hochman said.
Hochman began his report with a summary of the document prepared by Facilities Director Jim Hafey, who concluded that the costs per square foot for demolition/new build would be $571 while the cost for a renovation project would be $600.
Hochman said the new building will continue to be used for educational purposes. He said that Salem State University, Endicott College, and possibly the YMCA have expressed interest in securing space. He also stressed urgency due to the fact that more than 1,000 new housing units are “coming.”
“We don’t have the time to wait for the MSBA (Massachusetts School Building Authority) for this building,” he said, following with a motion to approve the demolition of the school.
Committee member Joe Amico agreed with Hochman.
“Demolition is the right thing to do,” Amico said, citing the influx of an increasing number of families with young children moving into the city. “Kiley is just sitting there and it’s not going to get better. I don’t need to see any more studies on Kiley.”
Dunne questioned whether the city has the money to build a new school when that money is not already being used to remedy serious problems in other schools, including mold at the Burke and Center Schools. She also said there has been no finding that the building is structurally unsound.
“Ripping down the building if it is structurally sound without a good engineering study, in my mind, isn’t prudent,” she said. “I don’t see a new building coming with the many other projects like the Senior Center addition and the new public safety building. If we could build a new school using city money, we would have done that with other schools. If you think you can build a new school with just city money and no MSBA money, I disagree with you all.”
Committee member Brandi Carpenter said she agreed with Dunne, saying the committee needs more information and has asked for reports about the Kiley but has never gotten them.
“To find out that a decision (to demolish) has already been made and it’s with the council, isn’t right,” Carpenter said.
Committee Vice Chair John Olimpio, who moderated the meeting in the absence of Bettencourt, said he wants to know where the city will find funding for a new building.
“What is the plan?” he asked. “I am not against this concept (demolition)… but we need more information. I don’t necessarily need a big feasibility study, but Ms. Dunne brought up a good point; so we demolish it, so what is the plan? I haven’t gotten any information on that.”
Hochman lamented the absence of the mayor, saying, “I wish the mayor were here because he’d answer some of your questions. I wouldn’t be putting this before you if I didn’t get a commitment from the mayor that there are funds available or there will be funds put forward for construction costs for an educational facility on this site.”
Demolition could be completed as early as this spring with construction completed in two and a half years because the district wouldn’t have to deal with MSBA “obstacles,” Hochman said. He said the cost of construction with MSBA funding would be higher than if “we take this on on our own, which is what I am being told we are doing.”
Carpenter piped up, asking Hochman how he came up with the two-and-a-half-year period. She said that she had never heard anything about having a new building completed within that time.
Hochman responded that, according to Hafey, not only would construction be completed within that time, but the building would have an occupancy certificate.
For Dunne, the matter is all about the committee’s fiduciary responsibility.
“Decisions regarding school buildings legally rests with the School Committee. We need the best information to honor our fiduciary duty and make the best decisions,” Dunne said Wednesday. “That information doesn’t come from (Hafey’s) six-paragraph report handed to us the night before the meeting. We need that information from expert engineers, not committee members or city employees. If an engineer says we need to take it down and tells us why, I will absolutely vote to take it down, but we don’t have that information.”
Dunne also took issue with the fact that the City Council has been asked by Bettencourt to approve a $1 million bond to demolish the school and a DPW building located on Berry Street, which Bettencourt referred to in a Dec. 2 letter to the council as “the first step in the development of both sites for reuse and potential revenue generation.” The bond request is on Thursday night’s Finance Committee meeting agenda.
Hochman said at Tuesday’s meeting that the City Council “isn’t driving anything.”
“Nothing is going to happen to that property without our approval” and the City Council does not have the right to demolish any buildings “under the purview of the School Department.”
After 40 minutes of discussion, Hochman withdrew his motion to demolish. The committee will meet on Feb. 7 to revisit the issue.
