CARIBOU, Maine —The Caribou City Council heard a proposal Monday night from Lyndon Peck of PDT Architects regarding the construction of a new K-8 school in the Teague Park area.
“We made a recommendation to the Department of Education and to the Building Committee that we thought this should be a new school project opposed to a renovation,” said Peck. “This is because of the age of the existing buildings. Hilltop is 55 years old. Teague Park Elementary School is 65 years old, and the Caribou Middle School is 89 years old.
“There are always increased efficiencies and lower operational costs if you build a newer 21st century school than if you would run three older schools. This is an opportunity for the RSU to see a substantial savings,” he added.
The recommendation of building a new school in the Teague Park area came from a matrix based on a list of criteria rated and studied by the Building Committee and the civil engineers at PDT Architects. Examples of the rating criteria include proximity to established residential properties, zoning and planning compliance, percentage of usable land, bus route compatibility, likeliness of hazardous material contamination, suitable soil, and power access. Several potential build sites were considered and rated on a point scale, based on the identified criteria.
“The RSU 39 rating range included a maximum number of 330 points,” said Peck as he held a poster-sized copy of the ratings. “Teague Park scored 257, Hilltop got 202 points. The site on the Lombard road got 167. The High School got 171. The Van Buren Road site got 158, and then there was a site on South Main Street that got 130.”
“I have to ask the question,” said Mayor Gary Aiken, “did you ever go to any public hearings where you gave the people in Caribou the chance to come forward and say what they think this should be like, what should be done, or, most importantly, where it should be?”
“That’s all coming,” said Peck.
“But don’t you think that should have been done earlier?” Aiken responded.
“Well, we had to get to this point to understand that something was even feasible before we had something substantial to show the public,” said Peck.
“The only reason I ask this,” said Aiken, “is that, and I’m making a close guess here, but about 70 percent of the people who have talked to me about this new school have said it should be up where the high school is. That way, everything is all together. I’m not sure if any have suggested Teague Park, in all honesty. So that’s why I’m wondering why there wouldn’t be public meetings beforehand, because there has obviously already been a fair amount of work done in this project so far.”
“Well, the public is going to have the opportunity to talk,” said Peck. “The Department of Education’s attitude is that they want to be convinced we’ve had an opportunity to look at all the viable sites and that we have evaluated them using an objective criteria. We are doing public meetings during the first week of October.
“As the project moves forward, and if the stakeholders all agree this is the right site to develop, then there will be a public hearing and a straw vote for the public to come out and decide if they support the site or not,” Peck explained.
“What’s the estimated cost of this proposal?” asked Councilor Philip McDonough II.
“No price has been set,” said Peck. “It will be tens of millions of dollars, though.”
“Wholly funded by the state?” McDonough II asked.
“It’s different in different communities based on their level of indebtedness,” said Peck as he introduced his lawyer Bill Stockmeyer to help answer McDonough II’s question.
“If this project is approved,” said Stockmeyer, “all elements could be approved for state subsidies, but some may not. Let’s assume all elements qualify for state subsidy, and that is the case for a number of projects. If they qualify, the question becomes ‘what’s the local tax impact?’ Under the current formula and subsidy level, all three of your communities are paying the maximum cost expectation. I believe it is something like $15 million currently in costs qualify for state subsidy. Of those, $12 million are allocated to Caribou, as Caribou can afford about $3 million. That’s your maximum local cost expectation. If new costs qualify, the state picks up the difference. Assuming you don’t have extra elements the state doesn’t want to participate in, it should be a state-funded project.”
“The council and the city are obviously interested in what this project is going to cost when everything is said and done,” said Mayor Aiken. “There are costs involving everything proposed. I know it can be worked out, but the city is not in the position where it has a lot of extra money to throw out and make changes to things. As far as working with the RSU, I don’t think that has ever been a problem from our end.”
Peck agreed to speak with state officials and to take all comments into consideration while going forward with the construction project. He offered to attend a future Council meeting to update the panel.
In other business, City Council members also discussed renovations to the Caribou Municipal Building. Councilor David Martin made a motion to get a design document ready for the downstairs renovations.
The 2016 budget was the final item on the Council’s agenda.
“The staff has been working on putting together the initial request for the 2016 budget,” said City Manager Austin Bleess. “Before we get too deep into that process, we wanted to present our progress to the council. Any guidance from the council will be helpful with regard to increasing the budget costs.”
Councilors Joan Theriualt, Jody Smith and McDonough were not in favor of increasing taxes for the following year. Bleess said he would take the suggestion for no tax increase from the council and move forward from there.
