The Boyertown Area School Board voted Tuesday night, Aug. 18, to approve change orders for the high school construction project that are aimed to improve traffic and pedestrian safety on the campus.
The board voted 7-1, with Christine Neiman voting against, to approve three items totaling $59,798 as change orders to the construction budget. The charges are for barriers, guardrails and walkway paint striping for a roadway inside the high school campus.
“In every construction project, the designers and contractor see needs that come into play during the project,” Superintendent Richard Faidley said. “We come into the know that there is a better way to do this, keeping in mind the safety of our students and creating a safe way to get them there.”
The approval means the contractors will move forward with three items aimed to enhance safety measures on the driveway that around the east side of the school to the lower parking lots.
The first is to install barriers between the road and the construction area. The barriers are hollow, which will reduce on shipping costs, and will be filled with water when they arrive. The cost of the barriers is $39,858 for 500 feet. The district will have a two year lease, with the option to retain any amount of the barriers after the lease.
The second item is a guard rail that will line the road along the steep drop-off to the tennis courts.
“Having been on that road, the drop-off is very steep. The guard rail probably should have been there before, so I am glad it is going in,” said board member John Landino.
The 240-foot rail will be permanent, and will cost $19,440.
Finally, the district will install 500 feet of walkway paint striping to create a path for students walking from the lower parking lots along that road to the school entrance. The cost for the striping is $500.
The combined cost of the change orders will come out of the contingency funds of almost $8 million. Those funds are partially made up of money left over when the bids for the project came in under budget, said the district’s Chief Financial Officer David Szablowski. He said that the funds likely will not be used and can be put towards future capital projects.
At this point, the high school project is “well under budget,” Szablowski said.
The discussion of the construction led to, later in the meeting, Neiman making a motion to abandon a future construction project at Junior High West. The project is in the design phase and the district has issued $180,000 for a study on the needs for a renovation at the school.
The administration made it clear that the money for the study was already committed, but that no further funds for the project have been approved. Neiman modified her motion to allow the study to be completed, but to wait until the high school project was completed to move forward on any junior high renovations.
Other board members cited the unreliability of the 50-year-old boiler in the school and the need for a more secure entrance as reasons to leave the options open for renovating West.
“There is a 50-year-old boiler and maybe it will last a few more years, and maybe it won’t,” Landino said. “When I hear questions about what the urgency is, that’s the answer.”
The motion to stall the project was defeated in a 5-3 vote. Neiman, Robert Caso and Paul Stengle voted for the motion. Landino, Barbara Hartford, Jill Dennin, Donna Usavage and Stephen Elsier voted against.
