There’s a new twist in the ongoing saga to build a new Andover High School following Monday’s select board meeting.
In scheduling a Nov. 20 special town meeting to consider the AHS building committee’s request for $1.3 million to a detailed design of a proposed, $451.5 million new high school, the select board moved an article forward that would commission a $500,000 to assess the cost and feasibility of renovating the existing school.
The competing article would preserve Andover’s bond rating, which determines how much the town would pay in interest in future borrowing for capital projects. It would be a first step in waiting an estimated 10 to 12 years to build a new school when the Town would have a better shot of getting state aide from the Massachusetts School Building Authority.
The interim plan “would give some relief to some issues [at the existing school], but certainly not address the issues that a new school would,” Andover Select Board Chair Melissa Dansich said. It “would help us get to the point where finances…would be in a better position in order to go forward with the full project.”
The competing article also assures the special town meeting will be a referendum with the potential to kill a plan to build a new school without state assistance that has been more than a year in the making.
The so-called “interim plan” was first proposed at last week’s quad board meeting after being discussed by the finance committee. The select board will join the school, finance, and Andover High School building committee’s for a second quad board meeting Wednesday to take a deep dive into the educational plan used to inform the design of the new school.
The select board took no position on either proposal. The board will make recommendations to special town meeting at a future date. Laura Gregory, who has signaled support for a new high school, was the lone dissenter in the 4-1 vote.
“This…second article was first raised — at least to me — in a five o’clock email this evening, which I did not see until after I was in this room,” Gregory said. “We’re calling it the interim plan, but it’s really a ‘what can we do without triggering an obligation to bring the high school up to code to try and address the fact that we have an obsolete building that’s basically at its end of life'” plan.
“It’s not a plan. It’s not appropriate to call it a plan,” she said. “It’s some possibilities of what could be done without any significant research, expert analysis or community input.”
But other select board members portrayed the article as a backup plan, regardless of how they personally felt about the new school plan. The study would keep a “plan b” moving forward to address shortcomings at the existing school if the new school proposal fails.
“I absolutely think the $1.3 million article for schematic design should move forward to special town meeting,” select board member Annie Gilbert said. “But I do also think it would be a good idea to have additional money put out there to flush out a potential investment if the community decides not to support the full high school.”
It was some of the select board’s most heated debate on the AHS project to date, with Gregory questioning why the school building committee had not been told about the change.
Key Takeaways:
- The select board moved an article forward to commission a $500,00 study for an interim plan to renovate the existing high school.
- The article joins the previously submitted article to fund a $1.3 million schematic design for the $451.5 proposal to build a new high school without state funding.
- The select board took no position on either proposal. The board will make recommendations to special town meeting at a future meeting.
- Laura Gregory, who has signaled support for a new high school, was the lone dissenter in the 4-1 vote.
- A special town meeting was scheduled for Nov. 20 to consider the two high school warrant articles and at least four other articles submitted by citizen petition.
- The select board will join the school, finance, and Andover High School building committee’s for a second quad board meeting Wednesday to take a deep dive the educational plan used to inform the design of the new school.
“You didn’t want to give the heads-up to the school building committee that this would be discussed?” Gregory said to Town Manager Andre Flanagan. “So that, at a minimum, the community would know that this was going to be discussed tonight, and a potentially significant issue is going to be decided as far as the warrant for the special town meeting?”
Gregory also said the structure of the article that essentially sets up a showdown was unusual, and something she has not seen in 20 years in local government. Town Moderator Sheila Doherty said she met with Flanagan Monday afternoon to discuss logistics for the special town meeting and said combining the articles “makes sense.”
“I can’t foresee there being any conversation about one without referencing the other,” Doherty said. “And if we only have one in the article, then the other can be discussed because that’s not before the meeting at that moment.”
Photo: Screenshot/Andover TV