The Oak Harbor School District Board of Directors will soon begin to decide how much to spend on the expansion and remodeling of the high school, and whether that expansion package will include a new sports facility on high school grounds. Costs could go as high as $50 million.
Gary Goltz, school district construction manager, and Jack Hutteball, the architect completing the state-funded survey and study of school facilities, presented a preliminary plan to the community on Monday night. The purpose of the public meeting was to gather the community’s ideas and concerns about the completed project.
At this point there is no “definitive recommendation” for the project, Hutteball said.
Oak Harbor voters may be asked next May to approve a bond issue on the project, now with an estimated price tag of $50 million dollars, pending the results of community input and decisions made by the school board, Goltz said.
The project is set to go before the school board at its regular meeting on Dec. 10.
“What we want to do is talk about what we have found, what some of the needs are, and then an idea. We put an idea down together, a preliminary master plan. It is not the final solution, though. I want to stress that,” Hutteball said before his presentation to about 40 community members.
The meeting included all the ideas previously presented by various committees and groups, for what they’d like to see included in the high school, Hutteball said.
While he said the existing high school is structurally sound, all aspects of the infrastructure need to be replaced. Electrical, plumbing, and heating and ventilation are beyond their “useful life” in the 27-year-old school. Additionally, other aspects of the school are not up to current code, including seismic reinforcement, sprinkler systems, and placement of fire hydrants, and there are too many entry doors to the high school buildings.
Hutteball stressed repeatedly that a school of this design could not be built today because of its lack of compliance to the current school building codes.
Some of the ideas presented at Monday’s meeting included an increase in classroom space, a bigger cafeteria and kitchen, a performing arts center and an addition to the gymnasium that will include grandstand-type seating and a new weight-lifting room.
The preliminary plan as presented would cost about $43 million for the building expansion and remodel, and $7 million for the sports facility. The district would expect to receive about $13 million in state matching funds for the project on the building construction. There would be no state matching funds for the construction of the sports facility, Goltz said.
Most of the public at the meeting seemed to support the expansion and remodeling of the high school, and many voiced their support for the sports facility as well.
“We have two children — one in the high school right now and one in elementary school — and we have a definite interest in making sure that this community supports the schools and that these are the best schools,” said Ardith Tillotson of Oak Harbor, who attended the meeting with her husband Bartley Tillotson.
“It can be made into something much better,” said Bartley Tillotson. “And the thing is to have the vision to…say ‘OK, we’re gonna build this thing (to last) 30 or 40 years now, and this is what we believe needs to be there.’ But then, you have to garner the community support to say, ‘We believe that this is the future and we’re willing to put our money forward to do that’. ”
