The School Building Committee held its first public forum last week to outline initial steps and emphasize the need for community input and participation in coming up with a school design that voters can eventually approve.
This summer, the SBC will interview, select and negotiate with an architect and owner’s project manager. Part of its work will involve close coordination with the Community Center Preliminary Planning and Preliminary Design Committee (CCPPDC), which is working in parallel with the SBC on a feasibility study for a community center on the school campus. To that end, the Board of Selectmen and School Committee have authorized a Campus Coordination Group to facilitate collaboration between the SBC and the CCPPDC. Members are Superintendent of Schools Becky McFall, Town Administrator Tim Higgins, the chairs of the PPDC and the SBC, or designees, and one other member of the SBC and CCPPDC.
The SBC hopes to develop preliminary design options starting in the fall, with a town vote to choose one of the designs in the spring. If all goes well, the next steps are producing detailed shcematic drawings and thn another town vote on bonding the project in November 2018.
Among the issues that the SBC will tackle early on are where the various functions of the school campus should go (for example, the Lincoln After-school Activities Program, school administration offices, pre-K classrooms and storage); what a “green” or “net zero” building might involve, and what roles that other boards and committees will play.
“We need your help—I can’t stress it enough,” SBC Chair Chris Fasciano said at the June 14 forum. “To bring this project to fruition, it has to be a community project. Not everyone is going to get what they want, but in order for it to succeed, the community has to embrace the process and help us get there.”
Gina Halsted, a member of the SBC Outreach Subcommittee, outlined the various avenues of communication the SBC will use, including social media and LincolnTalk as well as mailings, workshops, forums, coffees, and other traditional methods. Meetings are also live-streamed and recorded for later online playback on the town’s video website, and all meetings are open to the public. Agendas, minutes and other documents can be found here.
Halsted invited residents to submit comments or questions by email to sbc@lincnet.org, though she cautioned that “we can’t respond [via email or social media] unless it’s in a very factual way” due to the requirements of the state’s open meeting law.
The SBC has also posted an online survey asking about residents’ priorities for a school project (building shape, repairs vs. new construction, etc.) as well as how they preferred to informed. The survey is open until July 15.
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