Health & Fitness
Build MISA Now!
The need for MISA has not changed. This is not the time to repeat past mistakes and scale back long overdue plans to improve the auditorium and musical instruction space at GHS.
Bids have come in to build the MISA project to improve musical instruction space and the auditorium at GHS at $ 6 million above the projected budgets. Experts have explained that the increased costs result from an improved climate for construction as the recession recedes and construction prices rise as more projects are competing for contractors.
Predictably, opponents of the project have come out of the wood work to criticize the plans with the same old arguments previously rejected by the BOE, BET and RTM. This same dynamic played out when unexpected environmental problems delayed the project. The same critics cried doom and gloom in efforts to derail the project.
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In my 25 years in town government I have seen this same scenario play out again and again whenever bids came in higher than expected. In most cases the Town took the long view and stayed the course and built the project as designed. Many of the schools projects ultimately were built as designed and in some cases used savings to enhance the facilities. Some of the projects were re-designed like the North Street Fire Station which was delayed and then scaled back to lose a bay and dormitory space only to later find we had to build elsewhere to station EMT equipment that could have been accommodated in the eliminated third bay.
Project delays almost always result in increased costs. Critics of projects who successfully delay projects later turn around to attack increased costs for which they themselves are responsible. Although critics delayed the MISA project, in this case the environmental issues are the key culprits for delays that missed the buyers-market for contractors for projects commenced two years ago.
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This is not the time to re-engineer the project or to provide opponents with another excuse to delay the project.The need is still there. MISA is required because past projects stinted the auditorium and musical instruction space. This is no time to repeat these mistakes. We should absorb the increased costs and go forward with the project as planned. We need to take the long view and build the project to meet our needs rather than scale back and delay the project to achieve false economies.
