School Committee Affirms Need For Maintenance Equipment For New Goodyear School

With details provided by David Dunkley, director of school building facilities, the School Committee Wednesday night affirmed the need for certain equipment for the soon-to-open Goodyear School:  two floor scrubbers, a scissor lift and two snow blowers.

 Mayor Scott Galvin recommended one floor scrubber and one snow blower, according to committee discussion.

 Committee Chairman Patricia Chisholm said she wanted to go to the mayor with the support of the committee for the original equipment list.

 The committee voted to support the original requests and to send a letter to the mayor justifying them.

 They want the new school well maintained, they said.

“This is what we expect of our schools,” Chisholm said. She pointed to the high school, which is five years old, and praised its level of maintenance.

“We don’t want to open the (Goodyear) building and not see things that should be there.”

 Dunkley said the new equipment would save time and money.  The scissor lift, for example, can hold two men, he said, necessary for lowering or raising heavy 100-pound-plus fixtures. The lift can also move when it is extended at full height, he said. Moving one of the school department’s scissor lifts to the Goodyear for a particular job would take about three hours each way, he said.

“I need a lift in that building,” Dunkley said.

 As for the floor scrubbers, other new elementary schools have received one scrubber for each floor of the school, Dunkley said. The Goodyear has three levels; he requested two scrubbers. They are used every day, he said. They work in tandem. One holds cleaning solution; one, rinse solution.

Other elementary schools got two new snow blowers when they opened, Dunkley told the committee.

Just over half the cost of the equipment would be reimbursable, the same rate of reimbursement as the building project, according to the discussion.

 We have not touched the contingency fund for the Goodyear, Chisholm said. Further, the old Goodyear School demolition fund still has $240,000 in it, Chisholm said. She proposed to use some of the money in the demolition fund for equipment for the new Goodyear School.

Procedurally, the committee should support its representative to the School Building Committee rather than voting on specific items, said committee member Dr. John Wells.

 The committee passed two separate motions:  to equip the Goodyear with two snow blowers; and two floor scrubbers and the scissor lift.  They then passed a motion by Wells to send a letter to the mayor justifying the equipment. They spent half an hour on this agenda item.