They just don’t build them as they used to.
Roofs, that is.
That inference emerged at the most recent Zoom-assisted monthly meeting of the City Plan Commission.
The roof in question is the one on the Foote Building, the large modern structure on the campus of the Sound School, the city’s maritime-themed magnet high school.
Although only 17 or 18 years old, the roof has been leaking since the moment it was completed, said Principal Marc Potocsky. He and Board of Ed Chief Financial Officer Phillip Penn were on hand at the City Plan meeting this past Wednesday night to request the commissioners’ permission to proceed with a permanent fix. They won that permission after explaining the problem, and the proposed remedy.
Potocsky and Penn said they plan to apply for a state grant to create a school building committee, draw up the specs for a roof replacement and perform the actual replacement of the roof.
The entire project, will cost $538,000, 78 percent of which would be covered by a state grant, with the balance coming directly out of Board of Ed’s budget, according to Penn.
He and Potocsky specifically asked the commissioners’ approval to go to the Board of Alders with permission to apply for what is called a “non-priority school construction grant.”
That particular pot of money is dedicated, Penn said, for replacement, not roof repairs.
That was fine with the presenters.
“There’s been a lot of patching done over the years,” Penn said in an email after the meeting, “none of which has been successful.”
The leaks have become bad enough to render some of the rooms unusable, he added.
“This sounds like a necessity,” said Commission Chair Ed Mattison.
It was the commissioners’ mandate to evaluate the request to determine if it fits into the city’s comprehensive plan.
For that reason, the aldermanic representative on the commission, Adam Marchand, posed a green inquiry.
“My question is if there is a possibility to leverage this investment to increase the green value of the school?” Marchand asked. “That seems especially appropriate for the Sound School.”
“At this point there are no specs for a solar panel,” replied Principal Potocsky. City Engineer Giovanni Zinn, who was sitting in on the call, said he did not think there would be enough room for a large enough solar display.
The question remained moot, as there were yet no schematic drawings or concrete plans in hand, because there was as yet no money.
“We need to stop the leaks,” stressed Potocsky.
Marchand said he understood that the main point was, as he put it, “to keep people from getting wet.” Returning to the specific mandate of the commissioners, he said, “investing in our institutional buildings is a part of the comprehensive plan.”
The vote in favor was unanimous.
The next step will be for the request to go to the Board of Alders. The pot for such smaller school repairs is limited, Penn pointed out, and timing is of the essence.
“As I understand it,” he said, “we go to the [Board of Alders] Finance Committee next, then to the full Board of Alders. It will be tight on timing to make the February submission deadline at the state, which is the 10th, so we will probably request an accelerated approval from the alders by way of a single reading instead of the standard two readings. If we can’t achieve that, we’ll get everything submitted for the state’s March 10th deadline. The risk is that there’s a fixed funding level for these non-priority projects appropriated each year. If other projects get approved ahead of us, there may not be funds left when our project is submitted.”
And the rain keeps falling.
If the roof was leaking immediately after it was completed, then the BOE should not have accepted the building and made final payment to the contractor. Who dropped the ball on this one? Either the contractor or the architect should have been sued, but I expect they were good friends of a former administration.