The students and teachers at Fairfield's two public high schools have to deal with their share of leaks from the elements. The question now is, how many of those leaks will be fixed this summer?
Director of Operations Thomas Cullen brought proposals for mass replacements of the roof at Fairfield Warde High School and the windows at Fairfield Ludlowe High School to the town last fall. On Monday night, the Town Facilities Commission decided to look into exactly how much of the two projects need to be done now, and how much of the estimated $9 million cost Fairfield's taxpayers can save.
"We're at a point where things are failing on a regular basis," Cullen said in his initial proposal, advocating a full replacement. "It's not cost-effective to start trying to rip up small areas. ... I think we got our money's worth out of repairs."
But the commission wants to determine work is truly necessary. Sol Briks, head of the subcommittee for the Warde project, said that in his tour of the roof, only certain areas were sprouting leaks, in the strips where workers walk to repair equipment on the roof. Some of the 55 sections, however, were not damaged at all.
TFC member Kenneth Jones, who took a similar tour to assess Ludlowe's windows, had similar thoughts about that project. Though some windows date to the building's initial construction in the 1940s (when it was Mill Plain Elementary), Jones said that even some of those windows could remain to save money.
"I think we need to look at [the windows] room-by-room, and elevation-by-elevation," Jones said.
The commission unanimously agreed to request $35,000 from the Board of Selectmen to hire an architect to present options for replacing all or some of Warde's roof. It also agreed to allow Jones and his subcommittee to perform a room-by-room assessment of Ludlowe's windows, and to vote on a request for a similar study for that project at its meeting Jan. 24.
What do you think about the renovation projects? Should the town take care of it all now, or should the commission try to save as much as it can? Sound off in the comments below.
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