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Nauset High School Renovation

    NAUSET HIGH RENOVATION

    New Vote Set for Jan. 10 on Cost Overrun

    Four Nauset district towns will be asked for another $38 million

    By

    EASTHAM — Voters in Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster will be asked to spend another $38.1 million to renovate Nauset Regional High School at a district-wide election on Jan. 10, 2023.

    Following construction bid openings, which revealed that the renovation that voters approved last year at $131.8 million is actually going to cost at least $161.2 million, the Nauset Regional School Committee voted on Nov. 3 to go back to voters to approve the borrowing of more money.

    In the coming weeks, the committee will explain its proposal to the select boards in each district town, and the exact amounts to be borrowed by each town will be determined, said Chris Easley, chair of the regional school committee.

    The renovation of the 1970s-era multi-building campus on Cable Road in Eastham passed in all four district towns in March 2021 with the total price set at $131.8 million, including $104.9 million for the actual construction. After spending a year working on the final design and sending out the bids, Nauset school officials faced an unpleasant surprise in October when the general and subcontractor bids were opened. The true construction costs were 22.5 percent over budget.

    Price hikes related to inflation, the war in Ukraine, and the pandemic created a perfect storm, Easley said.

    Shaving off $30 million would “mean removing about 64,000 feet of space, fully one-third of the project,” according to a written statement from the school building committee.

    The additional amount being requested is $8.1 million more than the construction overage itself. The additional funds are for contingencies and the purchase of 37 modular trailers rather than the 16 that had been budgeted.

    “We have spent funds that were not budgeted,” Easley told the Independent on Nov. 2.

    Nauset Supt. Brooke Clenchy explained in the written statement that the additional $8.1 million is to cover higher-than-expected costs of furniture, equipment, and technology, as well as testing and inspection, moving services, and the builder’s risk insurance.

    A “yes” vote on Jan. 10 should, at least, keep delays on the three-year project to a minimum, according to the announcement.

    Brait Builders, the lowest bidder, has been selected as general contractor and will begin work by the end of January. Starting in February, the gym and cafeteria will be moved to temporary locations, and students will begin moving into mobile classrooms. The building project is expected to meet its original completion date, which was estimated to be between November 2025 and February 2026.

    That plan now depends on a majority of voters assenting on Jan. 10. In this election, that means a majority of the combined voters district-wide. In other words, there is no town-by-town veto power. This was the process used in March 2021 when the original renovation project passed overwhelmingly. At the time, voters in all four of the district’s towns approved, although the Brewster Finance Committee opposed the plan.

    Sixty percent voted for the renovation in Brewster; 74 percent approved in Orleans; 79 percent voted in favor in Eastham; and 89 percent favored it in Wellfleet.

    Costs borne by each town depend on the number of students from that town enrolled in the district. Brewster, which sends the most students, now assumes 48 percent of the cost, Eastham 20 percent, Orleans 19 percent, and Wellfleet 13 percent.

    The property tax impact calculated in 2021 for the project was $76.59 per $100,000 of a home’s assessed value in Brewster; $42.66 in Eastham; $31 in Orleans and $35.71 in Wellfleet.

    The tax impact also depends on the borrowing term. A 30-year note would have people paying less but for longer and with higher interest. Town administrators have indicated they would prefer a 25-year loan, Easley said. The school district will do whatever the towns prefer, he said.

    NAUSET HIGH SCHOOL

    Renovation Bids Are $30 Million Over Budget

    High bids for construction mean a new vote is likely

    By

    EASTHAM — Before the foundations are laid for the Nauset Regional High School renovation project, voters in the four district towns may have to authorize a new budget.

    Of the $131.8 million that was approved by voters in Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster in March 2021, $104.9 million was designated for construction costs. But when the chair of the Nauset Regional High School Building Committee, Greg Levasseur, presented the general contractor bids to the regional school committee on Oct. 27, the lowest offer, by Brait Builders of Marshfield, was $134.3 million.

    The only other bid came from J&J Contractors of Billerica, for $149 million.

    The sizable overages in the Brait bid included sub-bids for HVAC, which was $9 million over the projected $16 million cost, as well as for electrical, which was $5 million over the estimate. Other overages were for the cost of windows and doors, according to Levasseur.

    During the design planning stages since the 2021 vote, the school committee “value engineered” ways to keep building costs under budget because of the construction market’s volatility. But the $30-million overage is too much money to shave off, Levasseur said at the Oct. 27 meeting. “It would do something that nobody really wants to do, which is attack the core of the program,” he said.

    To lower costs by $30 million, Levasseur said, they would have to cut 64,000 square feet from the renovation, which is a third of the project.

    “There are really no good solutions,” regional school committee Chair Chris Easley said. “We cannot go back and redesign because that would stop everything.”

    The building committee decided the best course of action is to take the issue back to the voters, said Levasseur.

    That decision was unanimous. “[The voters] should have the right to make the decision of either moving forward or not moving forward, but it is their decision to make,” building committee member Tom Fitzgibbons said.

    Brait Builders, which was also the general contractor for the rebuilding of Cape Cod Regional Technical High School in Harwich, originally gave the school committee a deadline of 30 days to accept or reject the bid. That was extended first to 60 days and then to 90 days to allow for a new district-wide vote.

    The building committee was expected to finalize a number for the updated budget on Wednesday, Nov. 2, after which the regional school committee will decide if a district-wide vote will be called.

    That vote would likely take place in mid-January.

    The approved budget of $131.8 million, with the new numbers from Brait Builders slotted into place, would be increased to $161.2 million. If that were the final number for a new budget, it would represent a 22.5-percent increase overall.

    Easley said that the new budget request will most likely be for more than the $30 million construction overage, however. “When we go back and ask the voters for money, we are probably going to be asking for more than that because we have spent funds that were not budgeted,” he told the Independent.

    The additional funds are for “contingencies” as well as the purchase of 37 modular trailers rather than the 16 that had been budgeted.

    Easley said that no one is to blame for the escalating costs. “There is nothing that we have done wrong,” he said. The overages are a “statement of our day and time.

    “Covid and the Ukrainian war are probably the two biggest factors to it,” he said. “Throw in inflation and it is almost a perfect storm against us.”

    The regional school committee received a grant of $36.6 million from the Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA), but the rest of the cost will be paid by taxpayers in the school district. The $131.8-million budget was overwhelmingly supported by the district’s voters in 2021 and was apportioned by school population for each town, with Brewster set to pay 48 percent, Eastham 20 percent, Orleans 19 percent, and Wellfleet 13 percent of the costs not covered by the state. But school committee members suggested alternative methods of apportioning costs during the Oct. 27 meeting.

    “I wouldn’t be opposed to splitting 25 percent per town,” committee member Josh Stewart said. “A massive chunk of this is on Brewster, and I don’t necessarily see that as fair,” he said.

    “I don’t know if that is legally viable,” Nauset Schools Supt. Brooke Clenchy responded. Regional school district agreements and state law stipulate how schools are funded.

    Easley also said that the $30-million overage is not anomalous. “There are all sorts of other projects across the state that are in the same boat,” he said.

    Easley pointed to the Tisbury School on Martha’s Vineyard, whose renovation project began in 2018 with a budget of $46.6 million, including $14 million in aid from MSBA. The project was rejected by voters, but after lead and asbestos were found in the school a year later, the district was forced to renovate the building without MSBA aid. Voters approved a budget of $55 million in 2021, but an updated budget now has the project at $81 million, an increase of more than 50-percent.

    “I’m not telling a bad tale,” Easley told the school committee. “It’s just that there isn’t any history of a place going backwards,” he said.

    If the new budget is rejected, Easley said, the estimated $17 million that the committee has already spent on architects, project management, trailers, and land preparation will be lost.

    It would also make it difficult to receive MSBA funding for a future project. “There has never been a school building project that was offered money, which it turned down, that was ever funded again,” Easley warned.

    Downsizing the project into a smaller school would not lower the cost, said Easley. Aside from losing the $36.6 million in state funding, the project would see much higher supply and labor costs.

    “It makes no sense to believe that somehow we can begin again and save taxpayer money in the process,” Easley said. “It is much easier to act on the known than the possibilities of wishful thinking.”

    The next school committee meeting is on Thursday, Nov. 3.

    SCHOOLS

    Nauset Project Clears Hurdle Despite Hacked Meeting

    Officials work to counter a pandemic-driven rise in building costs

    By

    EASTHAM — The Nauset Regional School Building Committee approved key budget modifications for the high school renovation project on Oct. 6, one week after being forced to abruptly adjourn a session and seek a deadline extension from the state.

    On Sept. 29, the committee met remotely to vote on “value engineering” refinements — that is, ways to shave building costs — after learning that shifts in the market had pushed the $131.8-million project $1.35 million over budget. The committee and its project manager had already been more than two weeks behind schedule in submitting budget documents to the Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA), so “the pressure was on,” said building committee chair Greg Levasseur. Before they could approve the documents, however, the virtual meeting was hijacked.

    Just minutes into the Zoom session, as representatives from Daedalus, the company managing the project, posted slides of its budget presentation, uninvited handwriting began appearing on the screen. Then, multiple disembodied voices began speaking loudly over the presenters, using racial slurs and sexually explicit insults. The hackers also manipulated the chat function to make it appear as though hateful messages were being sent by members of the committee.

    When Arlynn Consiglio, executive assistant to the school superintendent, attempted to remove the intruders from the meeting, she saw none to remove, thus confirming the meeting software had been hacked. Once the meeting organizers were finally able to close the session, interim Supt. Brooke Clenchy said she could see that the hackers were still trying to enter, which she said gave her the impression the intrusion might be automated.

    “We tried to go through with the meeting,” said Clenchy, “because it was that important.” The committee needed to submit budget documents to the MSBA, which is covering more than 25 percent of the costs, in order to be ready to send the project out for bids on schedule. Following the hacking incident, the project manager arranged for the building committee to receive a one-week extension. When the group reconvened on Oct. 6, they did so in person, at Nauset Middle School.

    Levasseur said that, despite the budget whittling, the project has not actually been diminished in any substantive way. Changes involved swapping higher-priced materials for less expensive ones, he said. Instead of using a petroleum-based siding for exteriors to replace the aging wood currently in place, a modified wood material called Kebony will be used. That will save about $700,000, said Levasseur. Similarly, the cafeteria floor will be porcelain tile instead of bluestone, saving about $75,000. Levasseur said that this sort of tinkering is normal and will continue for a few months as the plan gets finishing touches.

    A similar hacking episode occurred two days before the building committee meeting, during a meeting of the Nauset Schools Policy Subcommittee. On the agenda for that meeting, ironically, was a review of district policy for public participation at school committee meetings.

    Less than two minutes after the barrage of racist and vulgar language began, the committee ended the session. “It’s clear that members of the public are here who have never attended our meetings before,” said committee member Josh Stewart as the intrusion began. Eastham Elementary School Committee member Ann Crozier said that no such interruption had ever happened before during a school Zoom meeting.

    After the hacking on Oct. 6, however, Clenchy said that new security measures would be put in place for virtual meetings, though she did not specify what kind. She said she did not yet know whether the intruders were local. “Because our information is posted publicly, it could have been anyone — local or in another part of the globe,” she said. Clenchy said the district reported the incidents to the police.

    Eileen Belastock, director of technology and information for the Nauset Regional Schools, did not respond to questions about her investigation or on new security measures before press time.

    Levasseur said that the company managing the school project website has been hacked before.

    According to Levasseur, the high school renovation will go out for bids in February 2022. The school project website estimates that the new campus will be finished in fall 2025. The project includes renovating six of the eight existing buildings on campus and adding a handful of new structures, including a new science building and cafeteria. During construction, the school will use temporary classrooms.

    The renovation has been in the works since 2016, according to the school website. The current campus opened in 1972 and is in need of significant upgrades. Many classrooms lack adequate natural light ,and students say the school is always either too hot or too cold. Levasseur said, however, that the 50-year-old campus is in great shape structurally.

    “We build these schools to last 40 to 50 years,” he said. “Once we renovate them, these buildings are going to last another 50.”

    HIGH SCHOOL RENOVATION

    NRHS Completion Date Pushed Back a Year

    The new school is now slated to be finished in August 2025

    By

    EASTHAM — The estimated completion of the Nauset Regional High School building project has been moved out a year from August 2024, the date advertised by the building committee in March, to August 2025.

    Voters in a district-wide election approved the $131.8-million project in March. It will be funded in part by a $36.6-million state grant.

    Flansburgh Architects offered a new timeline at the building committee’s July 14 meeting. The first phase would begin next summer with portable classrooms installed on the northwest corner of the campus near the A and C buildings.

    This could be the last school year lunch will be served in the current Nauset High cafeteria. (Photo Linda Culhane)

    Phase 1B, the longest, is projected to run from September 2022 to May 2024. During that stretch, renovations to the gym and N building will take place, along with construction of a new performing arts center, cafeteria, and three-story academic building.

    Phase 2, from May 2024 to May 2025, includes renovation of A, B, C, and D buildings on the west side of the campus.

    In Phase 3, from May to August 2025, the modular classrooms would be removed and the remaining site work completed.

    The committee plans to bid on 37 modular units becoming available from a recent school project in Lincoln. Should that fail, consulting project director Joseph Sullivan said at the building committee’s Aug. 4 meeting, other options exist.

    “Everything is expensive right now,” Sullivan noted.

    Increased costs may require the building committee to make cuts as the final construction estimate is readied for a committee vote on Sept. 15. The design development submission to the state is scheduled for Sept. 16.

    “Do we have any feedback on where projects are going out right now,” regional school committee chair Chris Easley asked at the Aug. 4 meeting.

    “Out of control — that’s where it is,” answered Flansburgh Architects principal-in-charge Kent Kovacs.

    Kovacs pointed to Covid-related shortages of Canadian steel and higher site contractor costs. “It’s become tough,” he said. “I’ve had two projects where we had to do a lot of cutting — not just finish materials but systems.”

    Sullivan suggested that cuts could be restored to the project if bids come in favorably.

    LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

    People, Not Numbers

    By

    My cousin David is a professional gambler. He fervently believes that every human problem can be expressed in mathematical terms, and thus solved with mathematical logic.

    He has been wildly successful with this philosophy in his chosen profession. Once, years ago, I was alone in a hotel room on a business trip clicking through the cable TV channels late at night and landed on a championship poker match televised from Las Vegas, where David lived. There he was on the screen at the very moment of winning a $600,000 pot. He cracked a grin, in spite of the importance most people in his world attach to keeping a strict poker face.

    I love numbers, too — it runs in our family — but not the way David does. I don’t believe everything can be reduced to a calculation.

    If you’ve followed the arguments leading up to this Tuesday’s districtwide vote on spending $95 million to rebuild Nauset Regional High School, you know that numbers have dominated the talk. Opponents have pounced on the large contingent of “choice” students from other districts, calling them “free-riders” because their home towns pay less than $6,000 per year per student — an amount set by the state. They compare that number to the per-pupil cost at the school, which is closer to $20,000 per year. Their conclusion: Nauset district taxpayers are being ripped off. Get rid of those free-riders, build a smaller school, and we’ll save a ton of money.

    Defenders of the renovation plan have bought into this paradigm with their own mathematical counterarguments. The critics are wrong, they say, because the incremental cost of adding one more student isn’t $20,000, so we won’t save $14,000 per pupil by kicking “choice” kids out. Building a school for 600 wouldn’t save much anyway, they argue.

    There is no doubt some truth on each side of this fight. And people seem to agree we’re not debating about luxuries. I haven’t heard anyone argue that students don’t deserve heated and properly ventilated classrooms, roofs that don’t leak, or windows to look out of. They don’t have those things. Almost everyone agrees that the school is literally crumbling.

    Talking to students makes the narrowness and meanness of this debate abundantly clear.

    They are proud that young people from all over the Cape choose Nauset High in spite of its decrepit condition. They know why their friends chose the school, and why future students would, too. “It’s really the people that make it,” senior Sarah Kelly told K.C. Myers, “not the buildings.”

    What’s missing from the election discussion are our honest feelings about taking a risk on the future of young people in this community. This is no time for carefully calculated poker faces on that question.

    This Week In Wellfleet

    Meetings Ahead

    By

    Meetings are held remotely. From wellfleet-ma.gov, hover over a date on the calendar on the right of the screen and click on the meeting you’re interested in to open its agenda and find out how to view and take part remotely.

    Thursday, March 18

    • Housing Authority & Local Housing Partnership joint meeting, 5 p.m.
    • Natural Resources Advisory Board, 7 p.m.

    Tuesday, March 23

    • School Committee, 4:30 p.m.
    • Select Board, 6 p.m.

    Thursday, March 25

    • Zoning Board of Appeals, 7 p.m.

    Conversation Starters

    Select Board Likes Nauset Renovation

    The select board unanimously voted to recommend the Nauset High School renovation project on March 9.

    “As a member of the first class when the school opened,” said member Justina Carlson, “I know firsthand how old the school is now — there’s few better uses for our tax dollars than to educate our young.”

    Chair Michael DeVasto noted the years it has taken to put the project together and get it to this point. “We have historically low interest rates to bond this project,” he said. “We have $35 million from the state and a chance to have a state-of-the-art renovation. A ‘no’ vote on this project would eliminate that grant.”

    Townspeople will vote on two items for funding the project on Tuesday, March 30 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at the Council on Aging.

    One Fish, Two Fish

    At last, the Northern Hemisphere’s vernal equinox arrives this week. Could this be the year to unleash your inner naturalist? Are you curious about the lives of river herring? Perhaps it’s time to volunteer for the herring count.

    Friends of Herring River will host a virtual presentation for new and returning volunteers on March 20 from 10 to 11 a.m. The workshop, presented by Barbara Brennessel, a biochemist and clerk of the Friends board, will delve into the natural history of herring and the New England Fisheries Management Council’s latest herring management plan.

    With the herring population in decline, said Brennessel, the state put a moratorium on harvesting in 2006. For the last 10 years, with the exception of last spring, the herring count in Wellfleet has collected population data throughout April and May. (Last year the count was one week shorter, due to the pandemic.) So far, a population rebound hasn’t been detected, but by gathering data, said Brennessel, managers hope to one day reopen the fishery. Herring are considered excellent bait.

    The workshop will provide volunteers with Covid-19 protocols and information about entering data. Go to friendsofherringriver.org and click on News & Events for details on how to participate virtually. —Tessera Knowles-Thompson

    LEARNING

    Students Speak Up About Nauset High Renovation

    ‘The building’s a mess,’ but ‘what makes Nauset good is we’re open to anyone’

    By

    EASTHAM — During her four years as a varsity lacrosse player, Nauset Regional High School senior Paige Flanagan, 18, has had plenty of experience with the infamous brown shower water in the girls’ locker room.

    After morning workouts, said Flanagan, who lives in Wellfleet, “we would all run for this one shower because it was the only one that didn’t have brown, rusty water.”

    Paige Flanagan, a senior from Wellfleet, worries that ending the school choice program would mean a loss of talented classmates for future Nauset students. (Photo courtesy Paige Flanagan)

    Flanagan and seven other Nauset students interviewed for this article listed a number of problems they think indicate an overhaul is in order — from plumbing and heating to dark, windowless classrooms.

    But listening to adults discuss eliminating school choice to pursue a plan to build a smaller school, Flanagan said, made her worry about a different kind of problem. “If we got rid of school choice,” she said, “we would have a lot fewer kids, and we wouldn’t have the amazing artists or the sports kids.”

    At a special election on March 30, voters in Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster will decide whether to borrow $95,164,360 — the $131,825,665 price of the planned renovation minus a state grant of $36,661,305.

    Coming down to the vote, opposition has centered on the fact that almost one-fourth of the 877 students at NRHS are school choice students. That means they come from other school districts, like Sandwich and Dennis-Yarmouth, that pay an annual per-pupil fee. But those towns don’t contribute to the upfront capital expense of the renovation. Opponents of the project argue that, if school choice students were no longer invited to attend Nauset, a less costly renovation could be undertaken.

    Flanagan has gotten into it on Facebook with some of the adults who are against the inclusion of school choice students.

    “I asked my mom if I could respond to the comments on the Wellfleet Community Space,” she said. Those who argue against choice, she maintained, in reality don’t want the school renovation at all.

    “They just want it to fall to the ground,” she said.

    Flanagan is an athlete, but said she takes pride in the fact that, at the school, “We take art very seriously.” In her view, “What makes Nauset so good is we are open to anyone and anything.”

    Senior Sarah Kelly, 18, who grew up in Wellfleet, said she appreciates her small-town circle of close friends. But the diverse population at the school has given her an equally valuable opportunity. “It’s also important, socially, to have friends from as far away as Bourne and up to Provincetown,” she said.

    “It’s important to have friends from as far away as Bourne and up to Provincetown,” said Sarah Kelly, a senior from Wellfleet. (Photo courtesy Sarah Kelly)

    She thinks that if the school population were limited to students from Brewster, Orleans, Truro, and Wellfleet, Nauset would lose its competitive edge. “Choice,” she said, “is critical for the quality of the school itself.”

    Max Boulerice, a senior from Brewster, said that school choice was a non-issue among Nauset students.

    “Ask any student if they are for or against it and they’d say, ‘Huh? What are you talking about?’ ” he said. “There is no stigma for students from other districts. They made that decision for themselves. If anything, we kind of wear that on our chest.”

    The buildings, said Kelly, “are a real mess.” But, she added, “It’s really the people that make it, not the buildings. If opponents of the renovation would just take the time to walk around and see what’s wrong with it, they would understand.”

    The school’s heating system, according to several students, is shot. “You’re freezing or you’re super-hot, and the teachers cannot really control it,” said Ella Grimm, 16, a junior from Truro.

    Hailey Martin, a 17-year-old junior from Yarmouth, said her science teacher wore shorts until recently due to the high temperature in the classroom.

    The substandard heating system includes the original 49-year-old boilers, said Nauset Supt. Tom Conrad in a presentation that can be found at nausetbuildingproject.com/photos-videos/.

    To get hot water at a bathroom sink, you must run the water for at least five minutes. This, said Conrad, is because the school’s hot-water tank holds 10,000 gallons.

    “You can imagine how inefficient it is to heat that volume of water,” Conrad said.

    Ironically, the room where she took an architecture class doesn’t have windows, said Sophia McManus, a junior from Barnstable. Other buildings have windows, but there are only two in each classroom “and they are really small,” she added.

    Junior Katie Sanborn, 17, from Yarmouth Port, found this to be the biggest problem. “The rooms are very dark because the windows are so small,” she said. “You don’t know what’s going on outside at all. You kind of feel trapped in the classrooms.”

    As a musician, Sanborn said another concern is that the school has no space for large performances. The winter concert, for example, must be held at the middle school in Orleans, where the stage is much larger and the acoustics are superior, she said.

    Sophia McManus, a junior from Barnstable, said her architecture class was held in a windowless room. (Photo courtesy Sophie McManus)

    Also, the auditorium ceiling leaks.

    “We had a storm last year and we were running around putting bowls in the auditorium so it wouldn’t damage the carpet,” Kelly said. “If you look up at the ceiling you can see all the water damage.”

    “The school is falling apart,” said Boulerice. “All the walls have these 20-foot planks. One day the top bolts came out of one of these planks and it started leaning down into the middle of the courtyard.”

    Flanagan said a lot of her fellow seniors haven’t gotten involved in fighting for a new school because they will be long gone before it’s completed. But she cares about the renovation because “it’s going to help the kids who are in elementary and middle school right now,” she said. “Everyone should be able to have a nice high school.”

    Voting in the March 30 Special Election

    Residents of the four towns in the Nauset Regional School District — Wellfleet, Eastham, Orleans, and Brewster — must vote to borrow up to $131,825,665 to renovate the regional high school. With a state reimbursement of $36,661,305 authorized, the estimated cost to district taxpayers will be $95,164,360.

    For property owners in each town with a house valued at $400,000, the first-year tax impact would be $142.05 in Wellfleet ($35.51 per $100,000 valuation); $170.64 in Eastham ($42.66 per $100,000 valuation); $123.98 in Orleans ($30.99 per $100,000 valuation); and $306.35 in Brewster ($76.59 per $100,000 valuation).

    The tax impact varies from town to town in part because towns contribute to the cost of the school in proportion to their school-age populations.

    Voting is both by mail and in person. Voter registration for the election ended on March 10.

    By Mail: All registered voters by now have received a post card to sign up for mail-in voting. Those post cards must be returned by March 24. (If you didn’t receive a post card, call your town clerk.)

    You will receive a mail-in voting package containing one return envelope and two ballots — one for your town election and one for the district election — as well as two affidavit envelopes. The district ballot and its envelope are yellow; the town ballot and envelope are pink. Even though there are two ballots, there is just one question on each. Mark your vote on each and sign the affidavits. Make sure to match up colors as you put the paperwork back in the return envelopes.

    Completed ballots may be dropped at the drop-box locations in your town:

    • Wellfleet: Vestibule of the police station, 36 Gross Hill Road.
    • Eastham: Outside Town Hall, 2500 State Hwy.
    • Orleans: Outside Town Hall, 19 School Road.
    • Brewster: Outside Town Hall, 2198 Main St.

    In Person: Voting in every town will be held from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 30. —K.C. Myers

    NAUSET REGIONAL

    2 Eastham Boards Back High School Renovation in Unanimous Votes

    Beebe calls endorsement a ‘no-brainer’

    By

    EASTHAM — The Nauset High School renovation gained the unanimous support of Eastham’s finance committee and select board when they voted on Feb. 17 and Feb. 22, respectively, to recommend approving the $131.8-million building project.

    The renovation has won a $36.6-million Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA) grant that would reduce the amount to be paid by district taxpayers to about $95 million. The grant is dependent on the project winning approval in a March 30 special election.

    “I still think it’s a pretty conservative price tag given the volume of what they need to do at that school,” said Jamie Demetri, chair of the select board. “A price tag doesn’t necessarily dictate a decision. This is about something bigger than just a price tag. This is about a community.”

    Town Administrator Jacqui Beebe noted in a memo to the board that one goal of the town’s strategic plan was to keep the community diverse and vibrant. “We need to retain and encourage more families with children to live and stay in Eastham,” she wrote. “Good schools are an essential component and the reason why families move here.

    “This is a no-brainer, really, because of that $36.6 million,” Beebe told the select board, “plus the lowest interest rates that we’ve ever seen. We really need to take advantage of this moment in time to vote for this project to save money. I know it sounds paradoxical, but really, this is the best deal we’re going to get.”

    Beebe’s memo noted that, because of a delay in approving the municipal water system, the town “lost the opportunity for zero-percent interest from the state revolving loan program and is now paying 2.4 percent. This is an additional 28 million dollars in extra taxes that the residents must pay for the same system. We can’t afford another mistake due to delay of a necessary project,” she wrote.

    “I would challenge someone to find a municipal project that was delayed and ended up costing less, because there just aren’t examples in my 25-year history,” Beebe said at the select board’s meeting.

    The Nauset Regional School District warrant for the March 30 election states that the approximate debt allocable to each town in the district would be: Eastham, $18,871,224; Wellfleet, $12,290,135; Orleans, $18,157,605; and Brewster, $45,830,225.

    The Eastham Finance Committee issued a statement on Monday urging citizens of all four towns to vote yes on the project. The committee cited the MSBA funding, arguing that “no resubmitted school project has been approved for funding”; the high school’s “dire need of upgrading”; and the likelihood that a major repair of the school would require that the structure be brought up to code, at an estimated cost of $98 million — without the benefit of state aid.

    Opponents of the renovation project have advocated phasing out the school choice program, which, as of Oct. 1, 2020, accounted for 198 of the 877 students enrolled at the high school, and building a smaller school to serve only the district’s students. Truro and Provincetown, which pay tuition of approximately $18,900 per student under a five-year agreement with the district, were sending 83 students to Nauset High as of Oct. 1.

    The finance committee addressed the idea of building a smaller school in its statement. It warned that rejecting the project next month would cause a delay of at least three years and would require a new feasibility study. “Moreover,” the committee wrote, “during the delay, construction costs rise to match or exceed the towns’ $95.4 million portion of the renovation, and our children remain longer in a less secure, old building that meets neither 21st century educational requirements nor building codes.”

    Select board member Art Autorino defended the school choice program.

    “I think we’re at a crossroads,” he said. “We can decide if we want to continue the excellence we have in our school program, which is really driven by the diversity of the students in school choice and by the actual educational programs that we offer, versus downsize that and end up with a school that’s probably not as educationally diverse, not as people diverse, and doesn’t offer the kind of programs that we want, that at the same time will probably cost more money.

    “We have a fantastic educational program in a school that’s falling apart,” Autorino added.

    Fred Magee, chair of the Wellfleet Finance Committee, told the Independent this week that his committee had thoroughly vetted the project last year before voting to recommend its approval. Given that the regional school committee would be presenting its operating budget at an upcoming meeting, Magee said he would poll finance committee members to see if they wanted to revisit the subject.

    “At this point, I don’t know what the basis would be for revisiting it,” said Magee.

    Wellfleet Select Board Chair Michael DeVasto said his board would be voting on whether to recommend approval of the project. He planned to put the question on the March 9 agenda.

    DeVasto said he was “very much an advocate” of the project. “Having $36 million from the state really puts us in a good position,” he said.

    OP-ED

    Why You Should Vote Yes on March 30

    What the proposed Nauset High renovation will give us

    By

    The opposition to the proposed Nauset Regional High School renovation is relying on a confusing series of calculations based on questionable assumptions. Their main argument is that we can save millions of dollars by getting rid of school choice and building a school for 600 students instead of 900.

    But school choice is a red herring — it isn’t on the March 30 ballot. The question is whether to affirm or reject an excellent renovation plan with vast benefits for students, for teachers, and for the community as a whole.

    Nauset Regional High School courtyard. (Photo Ryan Fitzgerald)

    Take the time to look at the plan after you tour the school in its current state. You can take a virtual tour of the buildings on the Nauset website. The proposed design focuses on natural light, modern ventilation, accessible buildings, spacious classrooms, outdoor space, and modern furniture and technology. Distributed space for special education will ensure an inclusion model that brings students together. The design flows from how people learn, with room for individual study, multi-classroom lessons, and public presentations. It gives faculty space to get together in small groups for collaborative lessons and in a full faculty setting for optimal professional development.

    The renovation offers much to the community as well. In addition to the intangible benefits of knowing that we gave the next generation an exceptional education in a top-notch facility, there are measurable benefits: A year-round performance space for everyone to enjoy. Space for adult and continuing education classes. A place for summer camps with proper athletic fields. In small towns with limited budgets, it’s often hard to find spaces to come together for a speaker series, a film, or a concert. The new Nauset will have space and opportunity for all that and more.

    Finally, there is the fiscal benefit. The Nauset district has been granted $36.6 million by the Mass. School Building Authority for this renovation. You don’t need to be a finance committee member to know that turning down that kind of money is foolish.

    This grant, which will cover about a quarter of the total cost, has been five years in the making. It did not come easily, but only after hundreds of hours of work: meetings with education experts and landscape architects, and visits to schools to see best practices and designs. The plan is based on regional and national studies of the best learning environments, with input from the Nauset faculty. The MSBA saw that the school was in desperate need of renovation, and the grant shows its enthusiastic support of the proposed plan.

    Our kids will learn important lessons from the new Nauset High campus: That their education matters. That we believe in them enough to invest in their work and put everything we can into their learning environment. That we want them to consider multiple perspectives, to engage with as many different people as they can, and to value opportunities to gather as a community.

    We owe them a challenging educational program in a facility that matches their worth. Please vote yes on March 30.

    Kristen Roberts is co-owner and chief financial officer of Truro Vineyards.

    SCHOOL RENOVATION

    May 31 Deadline for Vote Called Into Question

    Committee chair accuses state Rep. Whelan of ‘hit job’

    By

    EASTHAM — The Mass. School Building Authority (MSBA) has confirmed that the Nauset Regional High School renovation is eligible for a third extension of the deadline for qualifying for a $35.6 million state grant — contrary to statements from the regional school committee. School officials said they had been told by the MSBA that there would be no further extensions.

    The second and most recent extension gave the district until May 31, 2021 to get voters’ approval of the $131.8-million project.

    MSBA Executive Director Jack McCarthy confirmed on Jan. 15 that his agency had never received a request for a third extension of the deadline. McCarthy would not say how likely approval of such a request would be, only that the MSBA would “entertain a request” and that a decision would take about one week.

    It was not clear this week who was responsible for the contradictory statements.

    Project manager Richard Marks, who is the president of Daedalus Projects in Boston, said he did not tell the building committee that an extension would not be granted, but that “senior staff” at the MSBA had told him about two months ago that “it was time to vote” on the project. He declined to name the MSBA staff member who told him that.

    “I told Greg [Levasseur, chair of the school building committee] the MSBA’s position is, it’s time to vote,” said Marks.

    Nauset Regional School Committee chair Chris Easley, who also sits on the building committee, said there may have been a miscommunication about the extension question.

    A windowless teachers’ lounge photographed on a Dec. 2019 tour of areas needing improvement at NRHS. (Photo Ryan Fitzgerald)

    School officials had used the supposedly immovable May 31 deadline as an argument for holding a district-wide vote on the project on March 30 rather than putting their plan up for votes at the four towns’ individual town meetings and town elections. Critics called the idea of a district-wide vote “undemocratic.”

    In a statement issued on Jan. 15, Levasseur said, “The Nauset Regional High School building project has received two extensions to date on the timeline for voters of the Nauset Region to vote on this project … There is no guarantee of a third. But more importantly, state law allows for a simultaneous district-wide ballot vote on both the project and acceptance of state funding.”

    Addressing the charge that a district-wide vote would be unfair, Levasseur said, “In this Covid pandemic era that will continue with us for the foreseeable future, a same day district-wide ballot vote is, without a doubt, the most democratic option. It allows for balloting by mail and will attract the largest number of voters in the region.”

    Critics say a district-wide vote would mean losing the opportunity to discuss the project on town meeting floors. A district-wide vote would be held simultaneously in Brewster, Orleans, Eastham, and Wellfleet, and would be decided by the cumulative vote.

    The school committee voted unanimously on Dec. 10 for a district-wide vote. At that meeting, vice chair Judith Schumacher said, “Greg’s [Levasseur’s] people have again gone to the MSBA and the MSBA has said, this is it, no more extensions. So, we now face what I call a drop-dead deadline. By May 31, 2021 we have to have voter approval for the proposed renovation project or we lose the 36 million dollars in state financing.”

    State Rep. Tim Whelan of Brewster brought the conflicting statements to light in a Jan. 14 social media post. Whelan said he contacted the MSBA on Jan. 14 after several Brewster residents asked him why the agency wouldn’t grant a further extension of the project’s deadline.

    “With regard to the Nauset Regional School Committee’s recent vote to circumvent Town Meetings,” Whelan wrote, “I spoke to MSBA today, who advised they would be willing to entertain any request for an extension on the existing deadline. The MSBA fully understands the difficulties Covid has placed on municipal operations.”

    Brewster resident Adam Lange read Whelan’s post at the Jan. 14 school committee meeting.

    “My concern is Brewster,” said Lange. “We pay for a majority of the school, or almost half, and now we can be overruled by towns that have very little skin in the game like Wellfleet and Eastham.”

    Easley questioned the timing of Whelan’s post, which he called “disingenuous.”

    “It’s the first time in five years that he’s chosen to communicate,” said Easley. “You’d expect a phone call first, rather than a social media post. I have a deep concern that this whole thing was brought up as a hit job rather than as constructive assistance.”

    Whelan defended himself in an email to the Independent.

    “The truthfulness of the statement I made on my social media was clearly proven by the quotes attributed directly to MSBA Executive Director McCarthy,” he wrote. “If doing my sworn duty to get truthful information from a state agency to then share with constituents is some kind of a ‘hit job,’ then I am left speechless.”

    SCHOOLS

    Nauset Board Sets HS Vote for March 30

    Critics say district-wide vote on renovation is ‘undemocratic’

    By

    NRHS
    The Nauset Regional School Committee has set March 30 as the date for a district-wide vote on rebuilding the high school. (Photo Linda Culhane)

    EASTHAM — The Nauset Regional School Committee voted 6 to 1 on Jan. 7 to set March 30 as the date for a district-wide vote on the $131.8-million renovation of the regional high school, with Orleans committee member Josh Stewart casting the dissenting vote.

    “I apologize if it’s going backwards some,” said Stewart, who had voted on Dec. 10 to approve the district-wide vote. “I’m curious if there’s any kind of official support from the four towns’ finance committees and boards of selectmen as far as changing to this one vote option.”

    The renovation project has been in the works for years. But the committee’s decision to have a district-wide vote has sparked criticism, especially from those who say the school should be much smaller and cost much less to rebuild.

    Responding to Stewart, Nauset Supt. Thomas Conrad said he had not met with town finance committees or select boards.

    “It was a big decision a year ago, and I think it’s an even bigger decision this year given budget shortfalls in most of our towns,” Stewart said on Tuesday. “We need to make sure the selectmen and finance committees are on board as partners with us. Letting this thing sit and stew for a year has brought up some people that are concerned about it.”

    Stewart said he still supported the project and understood the need to shift to a district-wide vote. “The single date makes sense,” he said. “Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that we’re going to be able to pull off four town meetings and four town votes in the time frame that the state requires, during a pandemic.”

    The committee had planned to take the project to town meeting voters last year, but the postponement and uncertain scheduling of town meetings prompted it to defer the votes until 2021. Now, with a May 31, 2021 deadline on the project’s $35.6-million Mass. School Building Authority grant, and uncertainty about the dates of this year’s town meetings, the committee voted unanimously last month to hold a district-wide vote. Both the building project expenditure and the debt exclusion question would be voted on simultaneously in all four towns and decided by the cumulative vote.

    “We couldn’t put this $36 million [state grant] at risk because we didn’t know if town meetings and in turn town elections were going to occur in an orderly fashion this year because of Covid,” said committee chair Chris Easley. “The greatest way to tick off the voters is to lose the $36 million.”

    Kavanaugh Speaks

    Reading from a prepared statement during the “citizens speak” segment at the beginning of the meeting, Brian Kavanaugh of Orleans urged the committee to rescind its decision.

    “First, the changed process violates well-established Nauset past practices,” he said, citing a $6.5-million replacement of windows, doors, and roofs at the school that was approved by town meetings in 2011. “Second, the change in process represents a failure to honor its word with respect to how voter approval has been sought since the project’s conception, and it is also a basis upon which you received over a million dollars to perform design,” he said.

    Kavanaugh is a retired commodities trader and former member of the Nauset Regional School Committee. He warned of potential pitfalls of a district-wide vote, naming the 2018 Dennis-Yarmouth district vote on a $117-million middle school project, which passed by a narrow margin, with Dennis voting 1361 to 876 in favor and Yarmouth 1502 to 1955 against.

    “Their project resulted in great inter-town discord and landed them in court,” said Kavanaugh.

    “There is a contradiction between how you were elected to this committee and how you are seeking approval of your project,” he said. “You were not elected by the four towns. You were elected by a single town, with responsibility to represent your town’s interest.”

    At that point Kavanaugh was cut off by Easley because he had used up his allotted two minutes of “citizens speak.” A bid by another resident to yield his own two minutes to Kavanaugh was rejected by Easley.

    “I don’t think that’s how citizens speak works,” he said. “We’re not in the middle of a meeting and you’re not yielding to somebody else that’s participating in the meeting.”

    Stewart said that, while he understood the spirit of the two-minute limit, he would like to see citizens allowed time to voice their concerns, even if they take three minutes. “It doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of a school to be shutting down voices,” said Stewart.

    “To be clear, Josh, it’s not my rule — it is the rule of this committee,” said Easley, adding that speakers could request time to appear before the committee and be put on a meeting agenda.

    Kavanaugh said afterward that he planned to ask to be put on the committee’s agenda to give a presentation, along with Bill Dugan of Wellfleet.

    In a recent letter to local newspapers, Dugan, a former Wellfleet town administrator and former treasurer of the Nauset school district, advocated the “phasing down” of the school choice program by not accepting new out-of-district pupils.

    “Nauset voluntarily accepted 290 Choice Program pupils in FY 2020 into our Middle School and High School from outside of the Nauset District,” Dugan wrote. “These Choice students will not pay for their share of the cost of enlarging the high school. Their presence hugely inflates the building costs for Nauset taxpayers.”

    According to the Mass. Dept. of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) website, the Nauset district’s school choice enrollment was 290.9 in 2020, 314.7 in 2019, and 348.9 in 2018. While not comparable to the DESE numbers because of a different reporting date, the Nauset School District reported school choice enrollments as of Oct. 1, 2020 of 198 at the high school and 60 at the middle school, with 23 Provincetown and 60 Truro students paying tuition to attend.

    Nauset receives $5,000 per school choice student and approximately $18,000 per student from Provincetown and Truro.

    “The number of pupils drives all the costs,” Dugan told the Independent. “Both the operating budget and the capital budgets — which are construction budgets. Obviously, the larger the school population, the bigger building you need.”

    The Nauset High renovation is designed for an enrollment of 905 students. According to the school district’s enrollment records for 2020, there were 877 students at the high school.

    Dugan recommended building a smaller high school based on the number of students who live in the four-town district.

    “I would welcome Truro and Provincetown joining Nauset,” said Dugan. “I think it’s the logical thing to happen. Now, I think they’re reluctant to join, because they have a better deal as nonmembers than they would as members. As members, they have to pay their share of building the new high school. As nonmembers, they don’t have to pay anything.”

    Dugan agreed with Kavanaugh’s opposition to the district-wide vote, calling the change “undemocratic.”

    “Each town should have the opportunity, as we have had in the past, to vote twice, so we have the opportunity to ask questions on the floor of the town meeting and also have the benefit of the secret ballot vote [for the debt exclusion],” said Dugan. He predicted a small turnout of voters in March, saying that many residents will be away at that time.

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