The Onteora School District is sorting through the complications of selling the now-closed Phoenicia Elementary School building. The first step is to determine whether the Town of Shandaken wants it.
“We have been in conversation with the Town of Shandaken since last summer regarding the building, but we’ve not met made any progress on coming to any kind of conclusion together,” Onteora superintendent Victoria McLaren told the July 2 school board meeting.
She suggested a time frame to conclude conversations with Shandaken, “and then we can either move forward with them or look for a different path. If we do not sell the building to a municipality, then we would need to sell it on the open market,” McLaren explained.
Shandaken’s doubts are varied. According to one town employee, the site’s a flood plain — as is the present town hall on Route 28 in Allaben.
Shandaken supervisor Peter DeSclafani says he’s completely in favor of the town moving forward with the purchase — provided if it can get financial support to do so. The location is only in a 500-year flood plain, unlike the Allaben town hall, which he says the New York City DEP is eager to purchase for environmental reasons.
The town government has been trying not to give the impression it was collaborating in the closing of the local school. Now that it is closed, however, said DeSclafani, the town board will in the next week schedule serious discussions about purchasing the property.
The school district has had inquiries from several different private entities. “The most important thing to note is that if we sell to a private entity, we cannot choose which entity based on their intended use,” McLaren said. “We need to just simply secure the best price for our taxpayers regardless of the intentions of the purchaser. But I think it’s time to bring this process to its next step.”
McLaren suggested the school board discuss the building sale at its next meeting, on August 6 at the middle/high school in Boiceville.
The centralized campus
Last year, the school board made the very controversial move of approving a plan for a centralized campus. The goal is for Bennett Elementary to provide all primary-school needs at a single campus in Boiceville by 2028. This would necessitate eventually closing Woodstock Elementary, but that move would require an expansion of Bennett, which needs bond approval from the voters.
District officials cite steadily declining pupil enrollment, which at 1056 was about half of what it had been 20 years ago. Opponents to the plan argue there is insufficient data to support school closures.
Repairs to the high school
Assistant superintendent for business Monica LaClair requested authorization to spend $818,457 for repairs to the high-school roof from $837,000 in reserve funds. Recent scans have found that areas to be repaired have worsened since the last scans in 2015, LaClair said.
Repairs had been delayed due to the pandemic. The only roof to be fixed at that point was the one at the Bennett School, found to be in the worst shape.
“So now, once we’re done with this repair work here, the plan is to again, do a full roof scan, and actually put together a larger roof project because there are still parts of the roof that need to be taken care of,” LaClair said.
The roof repairs will be done in tandem with a larger $8.8-million project that includes classroom ceilings, furniture, a security vestibule, upgraded wiring in the science wing, resurfacing of the parking lot near the tennis court, and a complete remodeling of the middle-school gym.
Repairs are from a different funding source than other capital projects.
“It’s really great that we are actually utilizing it and dwindling it down, because we created it when I was the business official probably at least ten years ago, thinking that it would be a really great reserve to have,” McLaren explained. “The problem is that you really are restricted to repair only. So if a boiler were to blow up, you can’t replace it. You can only repair it. And so we have found it kind of difficult to utilize these funds, because you have to follow the way the language of the law allows you to spend the money.”
The board will vote on spending the funds at the August 6 meeting.
Close board vote
Trustees unanimously voted to return Cindy Bishop to the presidential seat.
Bishop nominated Meghann Reimondo for vice-president. Trustee Caroline Jerome backed trustee Sarah Hemingway Lynch for the post.
Since Reimondo’s name was offered first, that vote came first. She received a majority, so Lynch’s nomination never made it to a vote.
Newly elected trustee Rick Knutsen, who was sworn in that evening, voted for Reimondo, as did Bishop, Reimondo and Clark Goodrich. Trustees Jerome, Emily Mitchell-Marell and Lynch voted against the nomination.
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