LEWISTON — Voters will likely get the final say about $9.17 million worth of renovations at the middle school.
School Superintendent Bill Webster told city councilors Tuesday that he had backed off a plan to do renovations at the Central Avenue school in two phases, over the next two years.
Instead, he suggests bonding the entire project at once and selling municipal bonds to pay for the work. That would trigger a public referendum.
“It’s not the same as building a school from scratch,” Webster said. “In fact, it’s much less. But the building is in good shape and as expensive as this may be, it’s very cost-effective.”
Councilors were reviewing their Capital Projects budget for 2012-13, which calls for $8.4 million in borrowing. That would pay for city projects ranging from renovations to the southern end of Lewiston City Hall’s second floor, road projects, more money to purchase and demolish failing downtown tenements and Lewiston’s share of work at the Auburn-Lewiston Municipal Airport.
City councilors are scheduled to vote on the city’s bond package at their next meeting, Tuesday, May 15.
“Tonight, we want to highlight some projects and see if we can begin working toward consensus at next Tuesday’s meeting,” City Administrator Ed Barrett said.
If they approve, Webster said he expects the middle school renovations would go to voters on July 10.
The work includes moving the main entrance to the first floor — providing a more inviting entrance and better security — updating windows and upgrading the facility.
“Other than exterior improvements, no money has been put into this school, for the most part, since it was built,” Webster said. The school department expected the state would agree to pay for repairs last year, but the project wound up low on the state’s priority list.
“We’ve now looked at this school with different eyes,” he said.
The initial 2012-13 plan, presented to councilors earlier this year, called for $5.5 million worth of work at the McMahon Elementary School and $3.5 million for fire sprinklers and code improvements at the Lewiston Middle School.
The second phase, calling for $5.5 million of work in 2014, would add four classrooms and renovate the entrance.
The work would still be done through 2014, but the project would be bonded as a single project. Webster said he expects the project would be able to take advantage of lower interest rates now to save the city some money.
“Even though one can make a case that these are two distinct projects, they are on the same building,” Webster said. “Also, we’d like to err on the side of being fully transparent and gain public support. We have redone the project which would mean it would go to the public for a vote.”
Mayor Robert Macdonald, who worked for 10 years as an aid at the middle school, said he supported sending the matter to the voters.
“That middle school is really bad,” he said. “If you have 22 people in a class, you just cannot get another person in. They are just falling all over each other, so something really does need to be done.”
But Councilor Mark Cayer said he was skeptical.
“I’m really concerned about putting a special burden on the taxpayers,” he said. “I’m just not convinced we need to go at this quite so aggressively. I just think we could take this a bit slower.”
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