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Date: 6/28/2021
GRANBY – The renovation of the kitchen at the Granby Junior Senior High School was a significant topic of discussion at the June 21 Selectboard meeting.
The meeting was the first which allowed members of the public to attend in-person rather than via Zoom. The meeting began with members of the school district discussing the need for kitchen renovations at the Granby Junior Senior High School. While a statement of interest had been submitted to the Massachusetts School Board Authority (MSBA), Adam Tarquini, who serves as the director of finance for the district, said that there was a sense of urgency. He said last year all the food for the high school had been prepared at the East Meadow School and then transported to the high school. However, with the hopes that students would be returning to in-person learning full time, he said that it would be incredibly difficult to navigate the same workload in the East Meadow kitchen.
Selectboard Chair Jennifer Silva confirmed that the project would cost “in excess of $300,000.” She added that using the East Meadow School kitchen, while it would create constraints to prepare meals for three schools in the kitchen “wouldn’t be impossible, but it would be difficult.” She then asked if the district had looked at other options such as catering to see if the cost of such an alternative made sense. Tarquini said they had not looked at such options, and while it would be difficult, they could make the kitchen work for the upcoming academic year if they really had to.
Additionally, he said while they had submitted a statement of interest, that process could take three to five years and the renovation could not wait that long. Silva said while she understood the strain it would cause she wanted to wait for more information from the MSBA. She said her worry was that they would complete the renovation and the MSBA may say that the entire building needed to be rebuilt.
Selectboard member Richard Beaulieu asked about the enrollment for the district, which Tarquini said was about 700. Tarquini said it had been easier this year due to the pre-packaged nature of the meals. He said while they were planning to implement a similar plan during the next academic year they were hoping to offer a little more variety for students at the high school.
When Beaulieu asked what was wrong with the equipment in the kitchen, Tarquini explained that it wasn’t the equipment that needed updating, rather the ventilation and airflow. Interim Superintendent Carol Hepworth explained that students and staff were not allowed in the kitchen area. Silva said she was hoping the MSBA would approve the construction of a new building and trying to save all the money they could for that project.
Tarquini said even if the project went out to bid the project likely wouldn’t be completed until the winter of spring of 2022. He expressed concern that if they waited longer to put the project out to bid that they would lose another year of kitchen use. Tarquini said they were hoping to use some of the CARES money to offset the cost of the project, which had the potential to cost upwards of $500,000 based on what they found during construction. Silva questioned how much of the CARES fund would be able to be used.
Tarquini said 20 percent of the $650,000 they had received was going to be used for resources to get students caught up socially, emotionally and educationally. School Committee Chair Jennifer Bartosz pointed out that the high school was still the designated town shelter and questioned what would happen should they need to use the building as such facilities. There was then discussion about the process of designating the East Meadow School as the emergency shelter as the easiest solution, however, there were facilities such as showers that the school did not have.
Ultimately, Silva said that if the district had the funds to cover the cost of the study, the town couldn’t tell them how to spend the money and they should simply follow proper procedure. Tarquini said while he knew they were allowed to spend the money, he simply wanted to work in conjunction with town officials, keep everyone “in the loop” and do the project the right way.
While Silva said they could not tell the School Committee how to proceed with the project, she said her personal and professional opinion was to do the “bare minimum” to make the kitchen functional and save as much money as possible. Tarquini explained that it wasn’t necessarily a study, but someone would come in, design a new kitchen and point out any potential issues.
“The design will tell us exactly what’s happening, what’s being abated. So that will be the grand scheme of things, they’ll give us our range of $3 to $5 million,” Silva said. Ultimately, all involved agreed that the district would begin the design process and would keep the Selectboard updated throughout the progress.
After school officials left, the Selectboard and Town Administrator Christopher Martin continued to discuss the dilemma. Martin pointed out that the generator at the high school was from the 1950s and likely wouldn’t be able to be moved to the East Meadow School should they have to designate it as the emergency shelter for the town. Silva expressed shock that the town was using a generator that was so old.
Martin explained that there had been “a military surplus” and “generators will run for forever and a day.” Selectboard member Glen Sexton said when it was tested, it was found that generators don’t run that much and therefore didn’t break as much. However, Silva questioned if they would be able to find repair parts for the generator should something break.
“A lot of your generators of diesel engines and they haven’t made a lot of changes to diesel engines in the past 50 years,” Sexton said.
Silva then read an email the town had received from Jeremy Carrier who was in charge of the maintenance of the town’s facilities and public buildings. She said he had been the recipient of an email from John Sullivan, who was the school department’s facilities maintenance coordinator, instructing Carrier to “not cut the athletic fields until further notice.”
Silva said the town “had taken some hits on how the fields look at the high school” and wanted people to be aware that “it is not our maintenance department not doing their job.” She said that following the Annual Town Meeting people had taken to social media to express frustration and confusion over the department. However, she said, “Jeremy and his crew have done a fantastic job and I don’t think it’s fair they’re getting the short end of the stick.”
Sexton added that people should reach out to town officials with concerns via phone or email rather than on social media. Martin added that Carrier was also having difficulty navigating the recess schedule while mowing fields as he had either had to stop mowing or try to keep kids away from the machine as it was dangerous.