School Building Committee on Town Warrant

A proposal to form a 20 member School Building Committee will appear on the May 11 Spring Town Meeting warrant.

The Seekonk Select Board approved the article at their April 1 meeting in a 4 to 1 vote. Michelle Hines, Michael Healy, Chris Zorra, and Pam Pozzi all voted in favor. Gary Sagar, who said he would not be supporting the inclusion of the article, voted ‘present.’

“We are required to have this building committee seated within 60 days of being invited to the MSBA pipeline, which commences on July 1,” said School Superintendent Rebecca Kidwell.

“There is no other town meeting scheduled before the end of August. If we don’t put this on the May (town meeting), we would have to call a special town meeting,” Kidwell told the Select Board. “Just approving it (to be) on the warrant isn’t saying that you’re going to fund a new school.”

If the committee is approved at town meeting, the voting members are required to be town residents over the age of 18.

“We intend to include students, we intend to include faculty members, and you’re required by the MSBA to include people like your Superintendent, your School Business Administrator, and the administrators of the schools,” Kidwell continued. “We do not live in Seekonk so we would be non-voting members.”

The Select Board also approved sending a Statement of Interest to the MSBA (Massachusetts School Building Authority) for Seekonk High School.

The priorities in the document include expanded classroom space to handle overcrowding due to increased student enrollment, and renovations or modernizations of school facilities including roofs, windows, heating, and ventilation systems, which will decrease energy costs.

“We are not coming up with some wild new project here,” Kidwell added. “We are just fulfilling the bureaucratic box that the MSBA has already allowed us towards.”