Letters: Conte School Worth Preserving
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To the Editor:
In a couple of weeks, I encourage you to vote to move Conte School forward. Three people sponsored the petition that halted the city from receiving a $23 million award for the school.
Their main concerns: not enough outdoor play area; the cost of renovating Conte will go over budget; not enough options were considered, and it's an old ugly building with a damp dark basement.
I assure you that each of these concerns are unfounded and simply false.
Conte will offer more designated play space than what is currently available at Greylock, Sullivan and Brayton. The gymnasium is much larger than Greylock and Sullivan, and equal to the YMCA/Brayton-shared gym. Conte will have the only elementary/middle school gym with bleachers and a stage excellent for multipurpose functions.
The consultants, architects and engineers that priced out the cost of the school have worked on many similar projects and have a reputation of coming in under budget. In fact, this is why the School Building Committee selected them out of several firms who applied.
None of the petition sponsors have directly worked on a building of the same size or cost, so they have no basis to claim this project will go over budget. To be extra safe, the architecture firm calculated a 15 percent contingency in their estimate to cover overruns. That's $4 million more than needed just in case issues arise during construction. Even with the extra set aside, Conte still came in millions less than options for Sullivan School. That information is from an entire team of experts including representation from the state that looked at the site.
If Conte fails to pass, it could be several years before we can consider another new school. In 2020, the prices we see today will look cheap. Waiting will not save us money, and not help thousands of children who need a new school between now and then.
As a member of the School Building Committee, I saw several choices for all the existing school sites. Other land options were considered including properties for sale and city-owned land. Most land owned by the city or to purchase is wetland, can't be developed, or is cost prohibited as the state does not reimburse to develop raw sites or demolish buildings.
Conte is not the Taj Mahal, but it's not another cookie-cutter brick and mortar school with a fake façade either. It's held firm for almost a 100 years. Tens of thousands of students have passed through its doors and it has the hopes of tens of thousands more. The original marble, columns, busts, stained glass and other architectural details are worthy of renovation. New public schools do not have these architectural embellishments because they are financially not feasible. These amenities are already there, and cost us little to polish them up. These fixtures are equal to those you find at prestigious college buildings and historic government architecture.
The remainder of the interior will be practically new as walls and ceilings will be stripped to the beams and rebuilt with fresh materials and new technology. Preserving the little we have left of the finest buildings our ancestors left us is a lesson to appreciate what we have, instead of quickly writing it off for quick, cheap replacements as we did to Main Street in the 1960s. Not only will Conte make a good school, but it will be our most beautiful school to be proud of for another century.
If you have other concerns, I strongly encourage a visit www.supportconte.com to get the facts before you vote.
Keith Bona
North Adams School
Building Committee,
City Councilor
April 12, 2013
Tags: Conte School, letters to the editor, school project,
