LYME/OLD LYME — The school board voted unanimously Wednesday to reverse an Oct. 4 decision funding a $427,000 bid for middle school turf field and football field bleachers. The bid far exceeded the $140,000 originally budgeted for the project.
At the early October meeting, board members expressed shock at the higher price but voted 5-3, with one abstention, in favor of moving $717,000 into the non-fund. district designated to fund the installation of the bleachers, as well as other projects.
Board members Steve Wilson, Mary Powell-St. Louis and Chris Staab voted against the original appropriation. Laura Dean-Frazier abstained. Members Suzanne Thompson, Martha Shoemaker, Jason Kemp, Anna James and Jenn Miller voted in favor.
Superintendent Ian Neviaser said Wednesday that after addressing the board’s concerns on Oct. 4, the district came back to the engineering firm to discuss pricing. Neviaser said the district decided to change the construction plan and, rather than building the bleachers into the hillside, a retaining wall would extend the flat surface and install prefabricated bleachers on top.
“Personally, I think it’s a better idea just to watch the game, because you’re at a higher vantage point. You’re not necessarily sitting by the fence, trying to look through the fence,” he said.
Neviaser estimated the change would save the district between $100,000 and $150,000, but stressed those savings were a rough estimate.
Jenn Miller told CT Examiner on Wednesday that she initially voted in favor of the bleachers in October because that’s what she thought was needed at the time.
“I don’t want people sitting on the fence or on the grass,” she said. “I think a proper sports facility needs to have seating for parents and spectators.”
Miller said she thinks the newly redesigned plan is better.
Martha Shoemaker told CT Examiner that she, like Miller, viewed the new plan as a better plan that “could possibly produce savings.”
She added that the stands were also important for safety, given that they “provide a certain degree of separation between players and spectators.”
Jason Kemp told CT Examiner that the bleachers have been a topic of discussion for the Facilities Committee for some time. He told CT Examiner that at the time of the initial vote, he thought the price was the lowest and best option.
Suzanne Thompson told CT Examiner that in hindsight, she wishes the board had tabled the issue in October rather than voting that evening. But she said she thought the bleachers were necessary for the turf field — the district had invested in the field, she said, and it should be used to its full potential.
“I know a number of people thought this would just be a training ground. Well, honestly, it’s going to be used for both school activities and extracurricular activities. It’s not just a practice field, so it’s a facility where you need seating,” she said.
Thompson said she was happy the council found a solution to move the project forward at a lower cost.
“The fact is I think we need to have some form of bleachers. I was sorry to see how much they were going to cost in the previous offer. So to be able to come back and go again, wait, there’s a better way – I want to hear it,” Thompson said.
In addition to changing the basic engineering of the stands, the new plan also reduces the number of seats from 200 to between 125 and 150, but Nevaiser said he does not foresee a problem, given that the current stands can accommodate about 80 people and were rarely full.
“Very rarely have I seen stands so full that no one had a place to sit,” Neviaser said.
The board plans to consider new bids for the bleachers at its December meeting.
This story has been edited to include comments from Jason Kemp
