The Permanent Building Committee (PBC), which is responsible for estimating, designing, and constructing town projects costing over $500,000, last Thursday picked up on the topic of possibly shortening the timeline for installing air conditioning in Wellesley’s older schools. Proponents of accelerating the timeline were encouraged by the discussion, which came on the heels of a School Committee session featuring an update from the town’s head of the Facilities Management Department (FMD), an organization that supports but does not report to the PBC.

(Review Aug. 27 PBC meeting in its entirety via the Wellesley Media recording.)

“Although no accelerated schedule has been approved, this was a meaningful step toward determining what Wellesley can do differently to protect students and educators sooner,” according to Kelly Norris, who wrote to us following the PBC meeting. She has filed a citizen petition for this fall’s Special Town Meeting that calls on Wellesley to speed up the AC installation process at Bates, Fiske, and Schofield Elementary Schools, along with the Middle School.

Norris, and another proponent, Leah Zambetti Ryan, kicked off the PBC meeting during citizen speak to make their case in the name of health and safety of students and educators. Ryan is a construction industry veteran and said “All of the projects I manage are fast tracked—tenants want to occupy their spaces ASAP. To accomplish this, my team and I must approach the projects creatively and work outside the traditional workflow…” Norris said to the PBC: “The question requiring this Committee’s judgment is: What is the fastest responsible plan if protecting students and educators sooner is the priority?” The push for AC in these schools started as far back as 2018.

PBC Chair Michael Tauer reminded viewers at the start of the discussion that this appointed body is never a proponent or opponent of projects, but rather in a case like this endeavors to give a sense of the feasibility and pros/cons of making timeline changes. Toward the end of the discussion, Tauer said, “This project is not as simple as buying a bunch of air conditioners and plugging them into a wall for two primary reasons as I understand it: One… we don’t have the electrical capacity to power all those air conditioners so that’s going to require significant electrical upgrades and that accounts for a significant chunk of the cost. The other [reason] is that for many of these air conditioners there is going to need to be framing work done to sort of rebuild walls around the air conditioners…”

The town is looking to install AC at Bates, Fiske, and Schofield Elementary Schools as well as the Middle School in summer of 2028, whereas the petition advocates for that timeline moving up by a year at least for the elementary schools.

At the time of the PBC meeting, there were plans for a subgroup to meet on Monday, Aug. 30 to discuss further, as well as to prep for a briefing on the AC project at the Advisory Committee’s Sept. 2 meeting (the appointed Advisory Committee vets articles ahead of town meetings).

The PBC made no decision regarding the AC project timeline at its Aug. 27 meeting.

Steve Gagosian, design and construction manager for FMD, began his remarks during the PBC discussion by saying: “I think there’s some things worth looking at and try to determine if they are doable. I think what it boils down to is what kind of risk the town and the PBC are willing to take on this.”

He noted that while it’s true earlier projects in town funded in part through the Massachusetts School Building Authority (Hardy Elementary and the High School) used accelerated processes for funding design and construction together, they were based on more detailed schematic drawings than basic feasibility studies as is the case with the current AC plans, and they had construction managers on board.

Gagosian also cited challenges from permitting (including wetlands at Schofield) to scheduling (so as not to disrupt teaching or result in too high costs from nighttime work). He pondered whether it might be possible to go ahead of time to certain bodies in town, like the Design Review Board, to ask about abbreviated review processes. PBC member Matt King said rules are rules, but he was hoping Design Review Board wouldn’t really need to get involved in a project like this (of course more than a few homeowners in town would like to avoid such local government overreach as well).

PBC member Suzie Littlefield raised some concerns about the political logistics that might be required to support a revised  project timeline, if for example a Special Town Meeting and debt exclusion vote needed to be added to an already busy spring with Annual Town Meeting and the Annual Town Election slated.

PBC member Tom Goemaat has seen throughout his career in construction how projects can be accelerated in the private world, though acknowledges things are different in the public sector, and there would be plenty of timing challenges associated with accelerating the school AC project. He said there looks to be an avenue for buying the necessary switch gear, but that the School Committee would need to go to Town Meeting with a dollar figure for the project that can’t be guaranteed early on. “Town Meeting would need to be amenable to ‘Hey, we may be back once we nail this down,'” he said.

Like other PBC members, Goemaat expressed empathy for kids trying to learn in stifling conditions and for their parents. In brainstorming, he threw out the concept of temporarily consolidating the student body in schools that have AC while installation is conducted in the older buildings.

“The ask is that we use our collective expertise to say here’s what we would have to do in order to do this,” he said.

Wellesley Public Schools Supt. David Lussier said the preference would be not to disrupt daily learning at the schools, though the team planning the project would need to see what solutions vendors come back with.

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