Andover Town Manager Andrew Flanagan said he hopes to schedule a quad-board meeting to review the Andover High School Building Committee’s move to ask special town meeting for $1.3 million for a detailed design of a new Andover High School.
“Our goal was to have a quad board meeting in September,” Flanagan said at Thursday’s finance committee meeting. “I’m going to try my best to get everybody in the same room in September.”
The Andover High School Building Committee voted last week to ask the select board to call a special town meeting. The quad board meeting is a joint meeting of the select board and building, finance, and school committees to review articles on the warrant.
The earliest the select board could call the special town meeting is when it meets Tuesday. If the select board approves the request, the meeting would have to be held within 35 days after.
“I wouldn’t want to guess what the select board is going to do in terms of scheduling a special town meeting,” Flanagan said. “I don’t even know if they’ll talk about it on Tuesday.”
Flanagan said he expects to have a detailed analysis by Standard & Poor’s of the potential impact on the Town’s bond rating when it borrows for the new school, which has a preliminary estimate of $480.9 million. The Town is moving forward without state assistance after having 10 applications for funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
The finance committee would have to write a report analyzing the warrant articles. The report would have to be printed and mailed to voters, prompting some finance committee members to question the quick turnaround, given they have yet to review detailed information on the $1.3 million schematic design article.
“Well, you know what? We need the information. The Town’s waiting, the voters are waiting,” Finance Committee Chair Paula Colby-Clements said. “Everybody wants us to start having the conversation, so we might as well figure it out.”
Select Board Chair Melissa Danisch attended at Thursday evening’s meeting.
“I’m listening and, and understanding to what the process is and what some of those challenges are,” she said. “So, message received.”