Brewer residents to vote on $39.5M school plan

BREWER – Residents will decide Tuesday on whether to go forward with the proposed $39.5 million Brewer Community School, a planned pre-kindergarten-through-eighth-grade school designed to replace five aging and deteriorating schools in the city.

The good news is that the state is going to pay for a majority of the new school’s construction costs, around 97 percent, with only the school auditorium and $133,000 for land falling on the shoulders of residents, Superintendent Daniel Lee said Wednesday.

“That’s a very good deal,” he said.

The bad news is that if residents turn down the proposal, the money will go to another community and Brewer for years to come will have to live with its current school facilities – one school is condemned and all are at least 50 years old.

“Brewer desperately needs to replace its aging school buildings,” Lee said. “And an auditorium will definitely improve the quality of life in the city” because it would be used by students and the public.

While the state pays for cafeterias and gymnasiums, it no longer covers auditoriums as part of school construction costs. After much discussion, the committee that has worked on the project for the last couple of years decided to ask residents for $2.6 million to add on an auditorium.

The reason is that once Brewer Middle School is closed, the school’s performance area used now by students and the public will be lost, leaving the city without a stage.

“The school deserves an auditorium,” City Councilor Larry Doughty said during the November council meeting. “It’s pretty simple.”

City councilors threw their support behind the new school project and the auditorium during the meeting, unanimously endorsing a resolve that also calls for “proceeds from the sale of existing [school] buildings to reduce Brewer’s share” of the project, and it encourages private efforts to do the same.

The designs for Brewer Community School show a two-story, 156,350-square-foot building with shared areas in the middle for such things as the cafeteria and media center or library, and wings to separate the students by appropriate age groups. The school has 71 classrooms and can house 1,050 students.

The new school would be located at the corner of Pendleton Street and Parkway South, on the site of the condemned Pendleton Street School. An outdoor running track at the site will be moved to the western side of the nearly 20-acre lot to make room for the massive school, and a Holden couple already has donated $50,000 to expand the six-lane track to eight lanes.

The draft plans include a student drop-off area and parking for parents, a bus drop-off area, and parking for teachers and staff, featuring a total of 175 parking spaces.

Brewer gained unanimous approval from the State Board of Education and by residents in October during a nonbinding straw vote.

The referendum is split into four questions, which may be slightly confusing to the average Joe, Doughty said.

“I think if there is anything that will defeat the issue – it’s the wording of that ballot – the legalese,” he said.

The first referendum question facing residents asks if the Brewer High School district trustees, who own and operate the city’s school facilities, can increase their debt limit and the second asks if the district trustees can issue bonds for $36.8 million of the project, with all but $133,000 for property being paid by the state.

The third and fourth questions are both tied to the approval of the first two, and ask if $2.6 million can be added to the project for the auditorium, to be paid for by residents, and if in-kind gifts can be accepted to improve the new school or lower the local costs.

“It’s not just the future of our children, it’s the future of our city,” said Gail Kelly, who served as a city councilor until Nov. 20. “We need this school.”

If approved, construction on the school will begin in October 2008 and is scheduled to be complete in June 2010.

If residents vote the issue down, “the money goes to anther project in the state of Maine,” Lee said. “I want to encourage Brewer residents to vote on December 4 on all four items on the referendum.”

The project designs and additional information are available on the city’s Web site, www.brewerme.org.

Nok-Noi Ricker may be reached at nricker@bangordailynews.net or at 990-8190.