Possible Purchase of AES for New Town Offices and Business Space

Dateline: Feb. 11, 2022

At the Feb. 5th "Deliberative Smackdown" Session, a meager two dozen or so residents listened to a review of the town and school warrants. For the town warrant, almost 1/2 hour was spent debating and wordsmithing the last two articles that proposed the purchase of the elementary school.

According to the Concord Monitor, Town Administrator Derik Goodine said "It just gives us assets that we don't have that I believe we need as a community. To build a building like that would be millions of dollars. I think we're only talking a few hundred thousand dollars to renovate it." He further stated that these articles would allow the town to examine the school building and assess the cost of conversion to town offices. The selectmen would review these findings and then determine whether it would be financially acceptable to proceed with the conversion.

Economic Development Committee Chairman Michael Frascinella spoke a few times during the debate and added this caution, "If the school district sold AES to a developer, we would have no control over its end use." He also noted that the School Board needed to officially discuss the town's proposal and craft a warrant article allowing the town to buy the school. Voters would probably not get to vote on that until the next election cycle.

He advised the Select Board that Hooksett and Deerfield had successfully converted old schools to town offices. It would be very cost effective for the Board to learn from those towns how they were able to do their conversions.

The Concord Monitor also reported that State Representative Matt Pitaro objected to the purchase of either old school. "Part of my reason for voting for the new school was that we were going to sell these schools rather than keep the schools as obligations."

Mr. Frascinella later asked Mr. Goodine about the State's new (and negative) stipulation on the sale of the old schools. Mr. Goodine and Kris Raymond, School Board Chair, confirmed that the State recently told them that any profit from the sale of either AES or ARD would be subtracted from the $19.5 million construction grant. That would be a total loss of funds that could be used to pay down the school bond. How outrageous!

Many other residents asked good questions or made relevant comments, which lead Mr. Goodine to note that he had never witnessed such spirited debate before.

Mr. Frascinella commented after the meeting that "it would be much more beneficial if the town took control of the property and developed it for the benefit of the town. The move would also allow the town to eventually lease or rent space in the old town hall, turning that from a cost center to a profit center."

What You Can Do

Read the following text of town warrant articles 17 and 18, revised at the Feb. 5th meeting. You are urged to vote YES for the benefit of our town.