A Lot Of Unknowns With New Concord Middle School Project

CONCORD, NH — SAU 8, the Concord School District, has signed a letter of intent to purchase two parcels of land on Clinton Street for a new middle school and a new Concord YMCA while making plans to sell the Rundlett Middle School.

The ambitious plans, which are in the $90-plus million range for the new middle school and unknown cost for a new YMCA, have many moving parts that will need to come together to make everything work. Agreements have been signed with all involved to make sure everyone knows what the other’s responsibilities are.

For some involved in the project, it is going to be an easy process; for others, it will be more difficult.

SAU 8 Residents Have Limited Say

The residents of the Concord School District, about 85 percent of the city, will not be able to stop the project via initiative petition or a vote.

In fact, they have no say in the matter at all.

Unlike all but a handful of communities in the state, SAU 8 residents do not have SB2 rights even though they did in the 1960s. The only way they can have any say in whether a new middle school gets built is to elect new school board members opposed to the project — elections with an often abysmally low turnout that tend to mirror a middle school popularity contest.

Nine residents who were elected in November 2021 are participating in a 10-year review of the district’s charter. They could easily propose a mechanism by which the voters would have a say in the process and the community could vote on the idea. But more than a majority, before being elected, said they would not support giving Concord residents the right to vote on the project even though many said they desired the district’s educational system to be as good as communities that were allowed to vote on building projects and budgets.

ALSO READ:

• Part 1: Concord School District To Buy Land For New Middle School
• Part 2: Concord’s Middle School Could Be Sold After New Facility Built

Penacook residents who live in the Merrimack Valley School District do have the right to vote on budgets and projects — meaning about 15 percent of the city’s residents have more rights than the other 85 percent when it comes to determining their property tax bills and children’s education.

Parcel Owners Could Say ‘No,’ Too

It is also not a given that CenterPoint Church, which owns the parcels, will sell to the school district.

Matt Furr, the lead pastor of the church, said while a letter had been signed, a final decision had not been made. The agreement, he said, was brought before the congregation and they were praying about it. He said, “it’s a community conversation … there’s a lot that goes into that land … we want to honor that.”

During the next few weeks, a decision will be made to enter a purchase and sale agreement, and then, that will be presented to the church membership for a final vote, he said.

When asked if he was concerned the members of the church might reject the offer, Furr said he was “very open-handed about it … I don’t know what is going to happen.”

School Superintendent Kathleen Murphy would not say whether she was concerned with the final decision by the church. But Murphy and other schools officials will be meeting with church members to discuss the intent of the proposal and make the pitch.

“We thought it would be important for the members to ask us questions, to get a sense of who we are,” she said, “and I think I will get a better feel for that after I finish that meeting. You can tell by the tone of a meeting and the questions people ask you. I think I’ll have a better understanding after that.”

Murphy has been through this process before — when she worked in Hampton and Hampton Academy, the district’s middle school was being studied for replacement or renovation. She navigated the proposal along, at a $25 million price tag in 2016, with debate dating back many years. It was barely approved by town voters, in a squeaker.

Is It Right For The YMCA?

Michele Sheppard, the interim president and CEO of Granite Y, too, said it was unknown if the Y, which has had difficult fundraising in the past, would be able to raise the capital needed to build their part of the project.

“It’s certainly an opportunity we need to pursue,” she said, “on behalf of our community, to continue the work that we do, and partnership with the school, to do what they are doing.”

Sheppard said the model had been used successfully in a number of cities and was “a trend of community partners, working together.” But most of the communities she listed were 5 to 10 times the size of Concord, with much stronger finances and tax bases, too. That is what makes the project so unique, Sheppard said — there had not been a collaborative project like this in any city as small as Concord.

“We are not sure what it is going to look like, in all transparency,” she said. “Fundraising is not easy; there is no doubt about that. The Granite Y has done multiple fundraising projects but we also look to grants and foundations, and then we figure out how we’re going to build the right size facility to attract the participants to come.”

Independent dollars, she said, were hard to raise but, “we have to work together if we want to have these wraparound services that support everyone and their needs. We will continue to study it and do our best effort to make it come to fruition while also being financially responsible.”

After being asked if the Concord YMCA was fully committed to the project and they think they could make it work, Sheppard said, “We are not confirmed, truthfully.”

Sheppard said the Y was not willing to jeopardize what it was already offering and did not want to be a burden to the taxpayers either. But they were making every effort to explore the possibilities, she said.

The budget for the Concord YMCA is around $3 million annually with the Granite YMCA working with about a $22 million budget.

Margaret Tomas, a volunteer with the YMCA, said the organization had to also figure out “if we can do it” and “if it is right for us, the school district, and the community.” She said the ideas and collaboration seemed to work. But a small city had not taken on such an endeavor.

“I think it would be pretty unique and would be a real asset to the city,” Tomas said.

While it would be nice, Sheppard, Tomas, and Alex Turek, the executive director of the Concord YMCA, do not expect a large donor, with deep pockets, to come forward to assist the organization and make a huge donation even though it was a pilot project or an example of what could be used to promote interactivity in other small cities. They also understand that $500,000 here, $500,000 there, while a lot of money, was not going to cut it. But everyone involved said there was a story to be told and it could be framed to not only the Concord community but others.

“We will have to work really hard to tell that story,” Sheppard said.

Taxpayers Are Truly Beleaguered Now

Then, there is the cost to the taxpayers at a time when they are paying the highest property taxes in the history of the city in the wake of zooming assessments due to a lack of housing inventory and production.

While $96 million is the ballpark figure for a new, larger school, which will be made smaller and some things pared out, this price was set before inflation raised construction costs exponentially. Even with a full 40 percent in state aid, there is a good chance, with even a low-interest rate, that taxpayers will be paying close to $3 million a year for 30 years for a new Rundlett. This, on top of the $3 million a year taxpayers are paying for the elementary school consolidation project, through 2041, when they were promised, repeatedly, by school board members and administrators at the time, they would not have to pay for any new building construction until after the elementary school consolidation debt was paid off.

Murphy, as well, said enrollment should be flat for the next decade even though the city has hundreds of new housing units expected during the next three-to-five years, almost all in SAU 8. She said she would meet with city officials to get a better sense of the type of housing coming online in Concord during the next few years.

“Financially,” she said, “it’s going to be a big load for us. But we feel like we can do it and we have to do something.”

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