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Capital Planning Committee begins prioritizing projects

Date: 1/11/2010

Jan. 11, 2010



By Courtney Llewellyn

Reminder Assistant Editor



LONGMEADOW -- With budget season in full swing, the town is now looking at what capital projects it will consider funding come the start of the new fiscal year on July 1.

The Capital Planning Committee hosted their first meeting of the year last Tuesday to look over the list of capital requests and to start the process of deciding which projects are priorities. Select Board Clerk Mark Gold, a former member of the Capital Planning Committee, attended the meeting as well.

A total of 34 projects, totaling $2,302,109, are on the list of requests for fiscal year 2011 (FY11). The capital requested totals $1,531,329, but only $788,961 is available.

The total for projects listed as priorities by Town Manager Robin Crosbie is $739,050.

In the past, Crosbie put together the list of prioritized projects on her own, with input from various departments. This year, she worked with represen-tatives of the schools, the Depart-ment of Public Works, Parks and Recreation and more to determine what the priorities were in each department.

"We discussed what was urgent and what could maybe wait until next year," Crosbie explained. "The list of priorities was reached by consensus."

Those priorities include rehabbing the Bliss tennis courts, a mower replacement, a new truck/plow, a pickup truck re-placement, a one-ton dump truck, an engineering van, a new exterior door and a heating system replacement at Greenwood Center, new teacher and student com-puters schoolwide, a new gym floor, new bleachers and new lockers at Williams Middle School and new lockers at Glenbrook Middle School.

Gold noted there are no projects involving the high school on the list.

The new teacher and student computers will be phased in over the next five years, at costs of $50,000 and $83,750 respectively, each year. In the past, upgrades and replacements of this kind were paid for by the schools' technology fund.

Capital Planning Committee member Dick Kmetz recently made visits to the schools on the list and Greenwood Center to observe where capital funds may be going, and reported his findings to the committee at their Jan. 5 meeting.

Kmetz started with his visit to Williams Middle School, which has a gym floor still covered in asbestos tiles and glue. The replacement of this floor has been on the capital projects request list for the past three years.

"He [Kmetz] asked why the gym floor was a priority," Williams principal Chris Collins said. "It's because it's an old tile floor. It's very slippery and it constantly gets dusty. Yes, they are asbestos tiles, but they would be properly abated if the floor is replaced."

Crosbie told Reminder Publications the gym floor was a priority because it is used by both the school and the Parks and Recreation departments.

Kmetz also noted the small lockers at Williams which are worn out and the bleachers in the gym, which have been splintering, causing some minor injuries at the school.

The lockers at Glenbrook are 40 years old and designed so that six students share one locker, according to Kmetz.

He also shared his summaries of the school projects not listed as priorities, which include the upgrade of the Center School exterior, the concrete steps at Glenbrook, window replacement at Williams and the extension of the wireless network schoolwide.

The Capital Planning Committee will continue to review projects with certain department heads and Crosbie until they are scheduled to meet with the Select Board on Feb. 22 to present their list of projects to be funded.

Their next meeting will take place Jan. 13 at 7:15 p.m. in the Fire Station Meeting Room.

To see a full list of the capital requests for FY11, visit www.longmeadow.org/towngovt/CapPlanning.html.