School Board Celebrates Reconstruction Bond Passing
Construction will likely begin between next June
BAR HARBOR—It’s been a week of tears, happy ones, for many of the Bar Harbor Superintending School Committee (also known as the Bar Harbor School Committee) after the community resoundingly approved up to $58 million in school bonds.
About 30.7% of Bar Harbor residents voted June 13, with a 1,005 to 502 vote in favor of constructing new buildings to replace the deeply ailing Conners Emerson buildings.
“There was a lot of angst,” Chair Alexandra “Lilea” Simis said Tuesday during a special meeting of the Bar Harbor School Committee met in person at the Conners Emerson library and via Google Meet.
And a lot of work for staff, teachers, and school committee members as they spent the year scrambling to keep the school going after a boiler broke early in the year, water poured in through one teacher’s closet later on, and the library was shut after the wall pulled away from the foundation and biologicals had infiltrated the space.
The library has since been open and it was a different scene June 20 as the committee and staff had a sparkling water toast to celebrate the $58 million school construction bond and kick off the meeting on Tuesday. Simis served Poland Spring water in small wine glasses with the MDI logo and said, “I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that it wasn’t even a close vote.”
Word from the street and the grocery store, she said, made her worried. Presentations before the Town Council throughout the year often included pleas and impassioned speeches from school committee members that were countered by councilors worried about the tax burden on Bar Harbor property owners.
There was a lot of angst. There was a lot of work. And that work continues as the school works through the next step of finer design and fundraising. Simis and the committee have pledged to continue to try to find donors in a community full of wealthy summer visitors and nonprofits to help lesson that need for $58 million.
The first step is learning all the specific kinds of laws around fundraising, Simis said, who added that donating to the project is considered a tax write-off.
“There are a lot of strict little rules that we don’t want to break any of them,” School Superintendent Mike Zboray said.
“I just feel there is so much to learn,” Simis agreed.
She also wanted to increase communication with the Town Council, a sentiment that was echoed by some councilors at its organizational meeting last week. New Councilor Kyle Shank was appointed a member of the Joint (School) Budget Advisory Committee.
“I would like to really have a once a month time to give an update to the council. I’m really interested in opening up more frequent and close communication between the council and the school committee.”
Then she smiled, “This is just so exciting.”
Lisa Sawin of Harrimans, the firm in charge of the project agreed. “This is huge. We couldn’t be more happy for you guys, the community, and the kids.” She added, “Don’t underestimate how huge this is. I can’t put into words how happy we are for you.”
TIMELINE
For the next 11 months, from now until May, they’ll be working on design development and construction documents. They’ll develop the design even further and put it into construction documents, then the project goes out to bid using those drawings. Bidding will begin in April or May, with June 2024 to July 2026 as the construction timeline.
“We have to have all decisions made by the end of November,” Sawin said. A lot of the work from now until then is working with stakeholder groups about details about the spaces.
That includes decisions and understanding about programming needs, kitchen designs, preliminary layouts for furniture, fixtures, and the continued design of the exterior, interior spaces as well as wayfinding, permitting and planning committee process, and the engineers work on innards like electricity and plumbing.
“It feels real. It feels very real. I’m so excited,” Simis said from her seat.
“It is. It is real,” Sawin said.
NEXT STEPS
Next steps include updating the contract between the school and Harrimans, finding a time for the building committee to meet and for Harrimans to talk to Principal Heather Webster about programming.
There could also be tweaking and formation of subcommittees. Possible subcommittees include:
Sustainability and building systems
Communication
Fundraising
Recently elected Misha Mytar asked how the timeline works with the bond and about creating a fundraising timeline to work with the construction timeline.
The bond will not be written this year. During discussions with the town’s bond advisor earlier this year, the estimated bond sale date was April 15, 2024 and the first payment would be October 15, 2024.
Vice Chair Marie Yarborough asked, “Are there typical trouble spots or speed bumps that we should be aware of between now and when we open our doors?”
Sawin said most pitfalls are usually bad communication. The speed of the decision making sometimes surprises people.
“It’s going to be critical that we have clear communications with the decision makers,” she said. “It happens faster than most people anticipate.”
Yarborough asked who the decision makers are and how that process works. Sawin said it would mostly be Webster and the building committee, for the internal technical aspects (such as what types of meters to use) that would be someone within the district that has expertise. The process, she said, is usually worked out in the building committee.
Committee member Tyson Starling said that usually there is a site superintendent for the construction management on projects like this. A clerk of the works will be on site every day. That person will be the eyes and ears of Bar Harbor during construction. That is budgeted for in the project. That position will be advertised and chosen by Harrimans and a selection committee interview. In the two-year project, this usually happens closer to the construction’s beginning.
Starling said that it might make sense to hire that person earlier on. “Building by committee seems painful to me.”
A project coordinator is the other position that’s required. That person works with school and architect to drive the decisions. This would likely be a position for 10 hours a week for 38 months.
Zboray said they could talk about this at the building committee. Moving kids between buildings during construction, which has been a concern voiced by many, and phasing plans would be a combined effort of the project manager and Harrimans.
Starling said the school staff might also want to determine what projects the school might not want to coordinate in the next three years. This is happening already, Zboray and Webster said. Nobody wants to spend money on a school that’s going to come down has been a sentiment consistently expressed by Webster and committee members. Mytar also said that’s also about communicating that with the community.
Starling talked about parking and plans for child pick up and drop off during construction. Harrimans will work on some draft plans, which will be part of the construction documents.
Sawin said that there will be chances to have community forums if the committee wants them. Typically those occur before construction and before school gets out so that people know what they are coming back to. And there are possibilities for community celebration at groundbreaking and then again at the ribbon cutting.
LINKS TO LEARN MORE
Here is a link to bond advisor’s Joe Cuetara’s discussion.
For information on the Bar Harbor School Committee, click here.
For information on the Conners Emerson Building For Our Future project, click here.
https://www.harriman.com/projects/