Granby BoS Approves $11.4M Bonding Resolution

The Board of Selectmen at its regular meeting Monday unanimously approved a three-page resolution to bond $11.4 million for the town’s major capital improvements, including the long-awaited Silver Street Bridge replacement.

The next step is for the Board of Finance to review and approve the resolution, which would then set up a Town Meeting on Jan. 10, 2012, with a referendum to follow on Jan. 17.

Of the $11.4 million in bonding, the town would actually be responsible for just $8 million to $9 million after reimbursement from the federal government for the Silver Street Bridge project, Town Manager William Smith said.

The capital improvements that are on tap are as follows:

There are two projects on the school side totalling $3.4 million: $165,000 for a high school electronics lab, which would be completed in the summer of 2012, and a $3.23 million upgrade to the athletic fields, which would be completed around the summer of 2013.

Included in the athletic field project is the following: $700,000 for a 6-lane track; $800,000 for an artificial field within the track; $350,000 for lighting of the track and field; $750,000 for a secondary artificial field; $250,000 for handicap accessible bleachers; $100,000 for fencing of the the fields; $50,000 for a press box; $175,000 project design and engineering; $60,000 in contingency.

“Everyone is pleased with the [proposed] improvements as is the Board of Education for its well-deserved and well-needed improvements to its athletic fields,” Smith said.