Selectmen Appoint BHS Renovation Review Committee

The Board of Selectmen (BOS) voted unanimously Tuesday night to establish and appoint members to a new ad-hoc committee that will review the (BHS) renovation project, which is near closing after being in process for almost a decade. The five-member BHS Renovation Review Committee (RRC) was charged with looking into the positives and pitfalls of the project, holding at least one town meeting for public input and submitting a final report to the BOS at their July meeting.

The BOS voted unanimously to appoint Municipal Building Committee (MBC) Chairman Paul Checco (who also ), former Board of Education (BOE) , Board of Finance (BOF) and former BOE member Ron Jaffe, Selectman George Walker and one member of the public, Kerry Swift.

“Being on this committee, I can make sure we drill down and take a good hard look at this, going to back from the inception,” said Walker, who was on the BOF when the project was approved. “This community, obviously, some day in the future is going to do some type of project like this again,” he added, “I think we can come out of this with some ideas of what to do, what not to do.”

The pending project closing comes on the heels of , Morganti Construction, and two subcontractors, Ferguson Mechanical and Guerrera Construction.

The BOS was able to reach a settlement and avoid a lawsuit, however the final costs exceeded the appropriation by $485,000. First Selectman Bill Davidson with the (WPCA), with the approval of the BOF, to cover half of the sewer system cost through a benefit assessment, which must be repaid by the next fiscal year.

The BOS made a motion recommending that the BOF repay the assessment with a one-time appropriation from the general fund and scheduled a town meeting for January 31 at 7 p.m. in , pending BOF approval.

If the appropriation fails to pass at the town meeting, the administration will include the funding in the 2012-13 budget request.