Town Times | towntimes.com
Volume 19, Number 29
Friday, November 21, 2014
Serving Durham, Middlefield and Rockfall
www.TownTimes.com
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Friday, November 21, 2014
New roof in Brewster’s future? By Mark Dionne Town Times
The Board of Education is planning to hold a vote in the spring about how to pay for a new roof at Brewster Elementary School. As discussed at the BOE meeting on Nov. 12, the current roof is leaking in several spots and is near the end of its utility. The meeting took place at Brewster in the music room, which happened to contain a visual indication of the roof’s condition. To catch leaking water, a five gallon bucket hung from the ceiling through a hole cut in the ceiling tiles. Brewster Principal Nancy Heckler, who attended the BOE meeting, said there were numerous pails hanging from the school’s roof. All sections of the roof, according to District Business Manager Ron Melnik, are older than 20 years, which puts the entire roof at the end of its expected usefulness and makes the project eligible for some state reimbursement. “It’s leaky,” said Melnik, “and we’re spending money on spot maintenance.” Industry estimates on a job of that size are approximately $1.2 million, a figure that can change depending on what the structure looks like or contains once the roof comes off. The roof has been tested for asbestos and other hazardous materials, and those tests came back negative. “We’re working on getting some designs done so we can go out to bid,” said Melnik. “It will require going to referendum – a question for the public to bond or finance it – and we’re looking to do that some time in the spring.” To minimize disruption, the summer of 2015 would be targeted as a construction time frame.
A bucket hangs from the ceiling in Brewster Elementary School’s music room to catch water from a leaky roof. A vote on funding a new roof was discussed by the Board of Education. | Mark Dionne / Town Times
Although cold winds blow across the open space off Route 68 in Durham, the pond is not quite ready for skaters. | Mark Dionne / Town Times
Skating pond work moving forward By Mark Dionne
now dried out material to stop the erosion from Allyn Brook. Recent work on the townAt the Nov. 17 meeting of owned property has mostly reDurham’s Inland Wetlands and stored the brook and the fields Water Courses Agency, Public to their previous state, but the Works Foreman Kurt Bober re- remnants of the overflowed viewed the state of the skating brook and soggy field remain. “Allyn Brook is back where pond off Route 68 and proposed Allyn Brook should be,” Bober work for the area. Four years ago, Bober’s de- told the commission. “There is partment cleaned out “muck” a lot of erosion ... there’s probfrom the edges of the pond ably three- or four-feet erosion where the weeds were high. channels.” Bober estimated the size of “I took that material down to the southwest corner and the material at 40 yards, and I stockpiled it ... waiting for received permission from the it to dry out,” Bober told the commission to use it in the spring. commission. Bober also proposed replacBober proposed using that Town Times
ing a 12-inch pipe that maintains water levels between the skating pond and the brook. “It’s rotted, it’s broken, and everything else,” Bober said. Bober proposed replacing that pipe with two six-inch pipes buried in the original trench, which would allow pumping water between the skating rink and the brook as needed. Bober also told the commission and the audience that they should visit the area since it has been restored and cleaned. “Right now, it’s one of Durham’s best looking parks ... it’s beautiful in there.” Inland Wetlands voted unanimously to approve the work.