A Matter of Trust: Concerns with Credibility and Competency of District Architect, BBS

(This letter was sent to Scarsdale10583 by Jon Krisbergh) To the Editor and the Scarsdale Community:
It was clear at the Board of Education's, May 22, 2017 meeting that both the Board and many of the community members in attendance were surprised by the presentation of the newly hired district architect, BBS. In a 2.5-hour presentation outlining its proposal for all 7 District school buildings, including Greenacres, the architect called his credibility into question and minimized the needs of the Greenacres School to justify an inadequate solution that does not have the student's best interests in mind.

The Scarsdale community must not allow the Administration and Board to pursue the plan as presented and community members must voice their opposition to this poorly thought-out proposal.

It has been raised before in Scarsdale10583 and at previous Board meetings that parents and residents have serious safety concerns with any major renovation that is to be carried out with the children in the school. It will put children in harm's way and subject them to dangerous environmental hazards such as asbestos, lead paint and harmful noise levels. BBB's proposed renovation leaves the children in the school during the project and does not provide for trailers. BBS provided no environmental impact analysis and dismissively suggested that such renovations could be done with children in the building without providing any detail about how that would be accomplished.

The architect gave no comfort to the Board or the community that it would take these safety concerns seriously or that it would prioritize children's safety. Unfortunately, the regulations the architect relies on to justify his dismissal of these concerns are rooted in reporting by the architects, engineers and contractors that perform the work, not in actual oversight or monitoring.

Even with the best intentions to abide by the regulations, too many instances of accidental exposure during school renovations have occurred to allow a renovation to take place while the children are in the school. But there are other red flags in BBS's proposal that should give us pause.

Cost Analysis Missing
As has been raised many times before, including by the Education Committee of the Scarsdale Forum's November 3, 2016 Report, the School Board and the community need to have a solid understanding of the costs associated with the proposed project.
BBS did not provide any cost estimates or show any level of analysis into the costs of its proposal. Further, there was no option for a new school building for Greenacres even though Dr. Hagerman stated that the architect was tasked with considering such an option. The architect simply said a new school would cost twice as much as the renovation. With no numbers or analysis presented, the community is left with taking the architect's word.
Can we believe that a renovation – one that's claimed to be "better" or at least more substantial than the previous renovation proposal – will cost significantly less than a new school? In addition, there was no analysis of cost-savings over time with new and more efficient infrastructure in a new school or consideration of the limited useful life of the renovated building.

Understating the Needs of Current Greenacres Building
We should also be concerned about how the architect is addressing the problems with the current Greenacres building – a 100-year-old building that previous architects and engineers determined needed significant infrastructure improvements to keep it viable.
They understate the costs of what needs to be done to the school to make it an acceptable building for our students. Take a look at the example of the roof's continued use. The previous engineer reported it would need replacing in 7 years; however, BBS did not include an update of the roof in its proposal since his scope was 5 years, ignoring a major capital need that will be emergent in the very near-term.

Worse, the previous engineer and architect stated a new HVAC systems was required for the school; BBS says that the HVAC system is in acceptable condition, acknowledging that, at a minimum, a new boiler will be necessary in the near-term (no boiler is included in their proposal). However, they admit they never viewed the previous air quality studies and did not conduct their own – they merely walked through the classrooms and did a "smell-test." If they are going to contradict a previous engineering study, we must demand that, at a minimum, they should review the previous study and do their own analysis.

The proposed renovation does nothing to address the "old bones" and aging infrastructure of the 100-year-old school. In the long-run, the renovation will be more expensive and require additional spending to fix the aging infrastructure. We should not be asked to approve a plan based on their estimates of "immediate" needs if additional spending is hidden from view.

Lack of Detail
In addition to obfuscating about the actual needs of Greenacres Elementary and the cost of its proposed project, the presentation itself lacked the professionalism and detail we would expect for the size and scope of this project.

Last summer the previous concerns were raised about the efficacy of the previous architect when it was discovered that their square-footage measurements grossly over-stated how big the core classrooms would be after their proposed renovation was completed. BBS did not even include square-footage measurements in its drawings. The District laid out criteria for classroom size based on square footage requirements in the Model Program which allow the District and the community to objectively evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed project. By omitting square footage measurements in the drawings, the architect has prevented any ability to conduct such an evaluation or understanding of compliance with the Model Program. In fact, as with the last proposal for a renovation, it appears that many of the core classrooms will remain inadequately small after the renovation – but we can't be sure because the architect did not provide us with the data necessary to understand their proposal.

Us versus Them
One of the more concerning aspects of BBS's presentation was their attempt to distract from its inadequate proposal by attempting to turn Scarsdale residents against one another.
Specifically, the architect provided a misleading representation of the previous spending that each of the District's schools have received through previous bonds. Recognizing that they could present an image that Greenacres had received a similar amount of funding as other schools by limiting how far they looked back, the architect stated that Greenacres received 6.5% of bond funding over the last 10 years. This omits the fact that major projects funded by bonds occurred just prior to the 10-year cut-off. The architect should have presented spending over the past 20 years to more accurately capture the inequitable attention Greenacres has received. You can read more about historical spending in the following article-.

In addition, the equitable spending argument is fundamentally flawed – spending should be justified and responsible based on the needs of the facilities, not on whether one school received more than the other. If Greenacres needs a major project, all of Scarsdale should support it, regardless of whether we could spend the money on projects at the other schools that aren't necessary. Greenacres residents supported the previous bonds that did not benefit their school and we have confidence the other neighborhoods would respond in kind at this stage. To argue that bonds will not be supported by members of the community whose schools are not receiving any money in that bond is not only contrary to precedent, but an irresponsible way to choose which projects are needed and justified.

Unfortunately, at the meeting on May 22, BBS did not provide us with the necessary information to make an informed decision about their proposal. Given these initial stumbles, Scarsdale must demand that the architect go back and present a more thorough, thought-out proposal for renovation and, as they were tasked with doing, present a proposal for a new school. Greenacres and Scarsdale deserve an architect that they can trust and rely upon to propose and implement sound facilities strategy and plans. At this stage, we are far from having such confidence.

Jon Krisbergh
Member of the Greenacres Elementary Task Force
www.greenacrestaskforce.org
Facebook: @greenacrestaskforce