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Date: 1/4/2023
SOUTHWICK — The Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Committee in recent meetings has been listening to proposals from school district officials about hiring master planning services to plan for upgrades and future maintenance of the district’s athletic facilities.
District Buildings and Grounds Supervisor Erik Wicander told the School Committee on Dec. 20 that it would be ideal to have an independent consultant develop the facilities plan, and then to have a separate developer actually build out the facilities later, if the plan calls for it.
“An independent consultant paid as such will focus on our facility needs as opposed to those of a project they may or may not be party to,” said Wicander to the committee.
In addition, he said the plan could also look at facilities and fields used by the school district’s athletic programs that are not actually district property.
“We could take into account fields that aren’t even ours, but are used by the district, like Whalley Park,” said Wicander.
When Finance and Operations Director Clayton Connor addressed the committee on the matter Dec. 6, he said he had received a proposal from JJA Sports to develop what they called an “athletic master plan.” Connor cited a projected cost to the district of $33,000 in professional service fees to develop the plan, which School Committee member Pam Petschke at the time said was an expensive proposal.
During the Dec. 20 meeting, School Committee member Erika Emmelmann said that the cost could be paid one “phase” at a time. The JJA proposal included a description of six phases, each carrying its own professional service fees, which all add up to $33,000.
“Those different steps along the way, they don’t all have to be paid for at the same time,” said Emmelmann. “We can go step by step and reassess.”
School Committee Chair Robert Stevenson said that the committee could vote to approve funding for the entire process without having to commit to the entire cost at once.
“We can approve funding for the entire process while knowing there will be stop lights along the way,” said Stevenson.
Wicander also noted that when the plan is being developed, they could consider whether to use “off-site” athletic facilities for certain programs rather than the district continuing to use and maintain on-campus facilities themselves.
The entire plan, Wicander said, would be extremely granular. It would cover things like the turf management plan, fencing safety, accessibility of spectator areas, grass condition, and the specific dimensions of sports fields the district uses.
Superintendent Jennifer Willard said to the School Committee on Dec. 6 that that one driving force behind this proposal is that the school campus’ grass fields are not well maintained, and allowing that to continue for much longer may end up being more expensive than the consulting work.
“We really do need to start investing in our grounds, [or] they will get too far gone, and then there is no coming back,” said Willard.