Above: An announcement confirms the version chosen by the committee is for a brand new building to house grades 2-5 at Neary. (design image cropped from Finance Subcommittee meeting video)
Last night, members of the Neary Building Committee chose not to delay their decision on the big school project.
According to the Chair, they cast a unanimous vote to approve the version voters will be asked to approve or reject at a Town Meeting in April. That choice was for a 4 grade school.
I still don’t have all of the details.* I’ll be writing more on this later this week once more information is available.
Although I don’t know the final bottom line expected for the project, a News Flash posted to the Town website sometime yesterday, inviting people to last night’s forum, confirmed that the committee would be choosing between:
1. New Two Grade School at Neary School Site
2. New Four Grade School at Neary School Site
3. Add/Renovation – Four Grade School at Neary School Site
The cost of the two grade option is currently at $65M (Original range that was surveyed was $60-$80M) and the highest four grade option is currently at $85M (original range that was surveyed was $85-$105M).
To be clear, those weren’t actually the total project costs, which are much higher. The figures represent the portion of the project that Southborough would be responsible for after deducting the expected grant/reimbursment from the Mass School Building Authority.
Yesterday’s invitation also claimed:
The Committee will continue its series of open forums and looks forward to continuing to hear feedback from the community to better shape the next steps. . .
Community feedback is vital for the decision making process. Please join us tonight in person or on Zoom!
Yet, the announcement was (again) not properly coded under the Neary Building Committee category (or any other), and therefore not emailed/texted to any members of the public that signed up for Town news. And NSBORO never followed up on the messaging glitch to send out messages to NSBORO parents or members of the public who had signed up for the Neary School Building Project alerts.
*I wasn’t able to zoom in to last night’s meeting, and last night’s meeting videos still aren’t posted to YouTube. The only news I have since Monday night’s meeting is an email NBC Chair Jason Malinowski, responding to my inquiry this morning with a message that included:
We’ll be issuing a formal update memo today, but in short, it was a unanimous vote to proceed with a four grade school. The Communication SC approved a release last night.
More details will be contained in the brief memo and obviously happy to answer any questions.
As of 5:43 pm tonight, the memo still hadn’t been issued. But I didn’t want to keep readers hanging about the outcome.
Updated (8/14/24 10:02 am): I received a couple of emails from Malinowski last night. One shared the announcement below:
On August 12, 2024, the Neary Building Committee voted unanimously to submit a Preferred Schematic Design Report for a new four-grade school (Grades 2-5) to the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) later this month. The MSBA Board of Directors will vote on approval of the Report this fall. MSBA approval is required for the project to proceed into the Schematic Design Phase.
If approved by the MSBA, the NBC, in conjunction with the project’s owner’s project manager and designers, will work through the Schematic Design Phase with the intention of bringing an article forward to a Special Town Meeting in/around April 2025.
In reaching its recommendation, the NBC focused on the following:
- educational vision
- reduction of the number of student transitions, and
- the economy of scale with a four-grade school as compared to a two-grade school
It is critical that the public continue to engage in this process and provide feedback at regular intervals along the way.
The project cost has been a significant topic of conversation and will continue to be as the process moves forward. The estimated town share of this project is currently estimated at $84M. This number continues to be an estimate that will be refined as the project work continues leading up to the town meeting vote. For the average home in Southborough ($900K assessed value), the current estimated tax impact once the full project is fully bonded (FY29) is an increase of $1,207 annually. As a point of comparison, for a $600K assessed value, the current estimated tax impact once the full project is fully bonded (FY29) is an increase of $811 annually. The estimated tax impact is for this project only.
We appreciate the feedback received to date and will work tirelessly as a Committee and school administration to bring forward responsible plans for consideration that will serve the community well for the next 50 years.
Jason Malinowski, Neary Building Committee Chair
Gregory Martineau, Superintendent of Schools
Malinowski also expressed concern about my statement that the NBC message alert hadn’t been fixed prior to the meeting. He had believed the issue was resolved and showed me a screenshot of a message sent on Monday morning from NSBORO about the 8/12 meeting that he received.
I am sharing info with them about my user experience to demonstrate the issue wasn’t fixed. Hopefully, this can be resolved for future announcements.
Updated (8/14/24 10:46 am): I can also clarify that in the meeting on Friday, the Finance Subcommittee described a 30 year debt. The projected timeline was that they would ease into the annual bond payments – likely over Fiscal Years FY26-29, with the full impacts beginning the following year. (Earlier this morning I wrote that as one year earlier. But in watching more of the Friday meeting, I discovered that Malinowski pointed out that the borrowing timeline presented by the Town Treasurer seemed too early given the construction timeline.)
I will write more about the project after the video for Monday’s meeting becomes available.
As you enter this site from Parkerville Road, the hill you see on the left is the capped town dump. It was closed decades ago. It sits there at an elevation higher than the proposed new school. It is hard to imagine how this environment hazard is not a risk.
The committee, with both the Board of Health and School Committee, met with the DPW head and Town consultant to discuss Lundblad. I gave a brief recap in this linked prior story. If you’re concerned about the safety in terms of its location, the new building would be in the same spot as the current one — but with at least one additional safety feature to mitigate risks — a sub-slab depressurization system under the foundation.