Newton Residents Concerned Over Generator Failure At Mason-Rice

NEWTON, MA — Newton residents have expressed concern after the emergency generator at Mason-Rice Elementary School malfunctioned last week, leaving the building without power for an hour.

According to a note sent to families from Principal Jacob Bultema, power went out around 12:45 p.m. due to a transformer fire near City Hall.

"In a typical power outage situation, the onsite generator would restore power to the building," said Bultema. "However, the generator malfunctioned and we were left with without power for approximately one hour."

"We are working with our facilities department to address the functionality of our back-up generator to ensure the unit performs as expected should this type of outage occur in the future," he continued.

Despite the district's reassurance, several community members took to Village 14 to express their concern over the incident and how well the city maintains its back-up generators.

"There’s really no excuse for a back-up generator failing if it’s been properly tested and maintained," wrote Ward 6 School Committee candidate Paul Levy. "School-based generators should be especially reliable given the important clients inside."

"If this failure had occurred during cold weather, all of those children likely would have to have been sent home because the HVAC system would have been inoperable for an uncertain period of time, and the building would quickly have gotten too cold," he continued.

"There is a reason that the Newton Comprehensive Plan says 'Repair existing infrastructure before building anew: Fix it First.' The writers of the plan recognized the problems of letting maintenance lapse," added Ward 6 City Council candidate Barry Bergman.

In response to the concerns, Public Building Commissioner Josh Morse said the city's back-up generators, which are serviced by an on-call contractor, are serviced at least annually and often semi-annually. This service includes a test and inspection of 17 key components within generators at more than 40 locations throughout Newton

"The emergency generator at the Mason Rice Elementary School was fully serviced and tested this past spring," said Morse in an email. "In this case the generator did not start due to an issue with the radiator."

The city said the new radiator for the Mason-Rice generator will be installed on Tuesday, Oct. 12.

The Newton Free Library also lost generator power last week, said Morse. However, that was not due to a faulty generator, but rather a momentary restoration of permanent power that resulted in the generator prematurely beginning its shutdown process.