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Tupper Lake CSD 2023 Capital Improvement Project

Added Sep 16, 2023 •

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On October 17th, the Tupper Lake CSD Community will vote on the $20.5 million capital improvement project. Get all of the details in this video.

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Hi I'm Russ Bartlett, superintendent of schools for the Tupper Lake Central School District. The entire project was triggered by our need to complete the building condition survey and what we did when we got the building conditions survey back the first thing they look through everything and see what is a health and safety issue what is what's first and foremost going to affect the safety of everybody walking in the building and we knew we had to address those things when we first went through the dollar amounts to see what addressing all of our needs. We had a number that I thought was more than this community would be happy with that I wasn't happy with it. We pared it down and pared it down and got it down and we got to 20.5 million dollars which will address all of our needs. It'll create a safer building and will create a better education environment, I think, for everybody so we're asking the community to come out and vote on this project on Tuesday October 17th. The vote will be held in the Middle High School library and we hope we have the community support.

LP Quinn Elementary School and the district office finished in 1970s but 53 years later it's showing it. Many parts of the building are the existing windows from the 1972 original construction and they're in need of replacement and repair with r-values that are insufficient and leakage and operational problems with locking and sliding and what not. On these doors on hot days when the sun is shining directly on they swell and bind the doors making it more difficult to exit the building. The exterior canopies around the elementary school we have a masonry issues with our mortar joint cracking and letting in snow and also rusting out the structural steel. The roof at the LP Quinn will be totally replaced in this project so with that leakage we have insulation issues that got wet underneath, we've got loose parts of the roof that could blow off during a windstorm which would be an immediate repair and could be costly on that and also we have a chimney up there boiler breaching that originally was built too low and it needs to be real in order to other last longer. There's two classroom pods here at the elementary school that need to have the unit vents replaced. We're looking to have those replaced. They're old pneumatic 1972 from the original building.

The secure entrance: At the LP Quinn the entrance will be in the same location we're reconfiguring some of the office space so that when people come into the building they'll be greeted by someone through a transaction window and then in order to get into the building to have access to any portion of the building will have to be buzzed in and allowed through the office and the entrance will now be much more secure than it was.

Rotary Track and Field Complex was built as a volunteer project in 1999 and that's also sort of starting to show its age. The track has outlived what they told us to expect when it was installed in 1999. We'll move the Press Box and the bleachers that are on the home side of the field. An elevated set of bleachers in there with an integrated Press Box and that allow us to move the bleachers that are there over to the visitor side of the field that are currently a wooden set of bleachers that we constructed.

The Middle High School building in Tupper Lake is it's a great historical marker built in 1932 but also showing its age and showing its age significantly. We would like to replace all the exterior doors of the building, mainly in the front of the building. The doors are in desperate need of replacement with decay and rust at the bottom of them. Also that detected the sidewalks with the freezing and thawing cycles and the use of ice melt and just the winter itself in the North Country. We're looking to replace some deteriorating stairs and sidewalks that don't meet ada-compliancy because of shifting and chipping and breakage. After all that concrete, then replacing the steps and some construction on the front. We're looking to replace all the asphalt in front of the school we've got a lot of heating a lot of holes a lot of shifting areas. We will be replacing the windows in some of the areas at the high school being 1978 windows and their functionality is not working very well. We will be upgrading that for egress and also safety and for the operation of the windows but now we're looking to replace the Baker Wing Roof and the small gym locker room roof so that now we'll have that entire building with a roof set to last another 20 years. Also at the Baker Wing, we are replacing the bathroom so we're going to renovate the existing bathrooms to meet ADA compliance. The back parking lot at the high school is the the bus parking at and over the years from the buses being parked there they're literally sinking into the ground. At the back tires there's a lot of groundwater there and with a freeze and thaw cycles it's deteriorating at the point where the buses get stuck. In the basement at the high school is our switch gyro and our switchboard panel section that provides power for all the schools that over the years have been rotting at the bottom from rust and we have no choice but to replace the entire switch board. That needs to get done because it's a health and safety issue out here in the North Country you are not going to be able to have school. The emergency generator at the high school is also scheduled to be replaced. When we replace that we're also going to extend the exhaust cap or smokestack to the roof to disperse the exhaust up in the air. We have issues when the wind blows a certain way when we're trying to use the generator and it can go into the open windows at the school and or unit vent intakes.

Creating a secure entrance at the Middle High School will necessitate changing where the entrances and changing where the entrance is kind of changes where the entire Middle High School Office Suite is located. It'll be located in the same place but we're going to reconfigure significantly. The staircase that's right outside of the middle high school office will now become the entrance and that'll be the most visible part of this this project at the middle high school. For security, people then walk into a secure area before they will be allowed into the building. From there and the rest of the office suite will now hold all of the guidance, all of the middle high school office staff, there be a new conference room which is slightly bigger than the one that we have. People who've been squished in the conference room with 10 or 12 people for meeting in July will understand how important that is.

At the Civic Center, the ice making system is almost 25 years old so we're looking to upgrade that the new standards. We have a dehumidification system that needs to be replaced and then there's three pumps that pump the brine through the pipes underneath the ice surface to cool it so those three areas of the cooling system are going to be replaced in this project.

At the bus garage we're going to provide a bus exhaust ventilation system. Air quality standards have increased and now we need to provide that for the safety of our workers that are inside the bus garage. We're also going to put in a water separator wash bay trench area, too, that we can collect any oils and or anti-freeze so they don't go into the storm drain system and also we're going to remove that 6000 gallon diesel fuel tank.

So, of the 20 million if approved by the voters, the state will pay 74.8% of that which rounded up means that the state will pick up about 15.2 million and that leaves the taxpayers of Tupper Lake to pick up the difference. We are projecting at this point that a senior citizen owning a home of $200,000 in Tupper Lake, that's what we're using as our average, it would cost them $100 annually for this project if it were approved and for the average, that's what we refer to everybody that's non senior citizen that qualifies for Star, the impact would be $131 annually and if there's somebody that owns a home here that isn't their primary residence, so they don't qualify for Star, then the impact would be estimated at $154 annually so that's a maximum of $12.83 per month. It's what we're estimating at this point.

The buildings in Tupper Lake Central School District are a great source of pride for the community, as they should be, but they're starting to show their age so this building project will allow us to address all of the needs of the buildings in order to keep them functioning smoothly and efficiently and make sure that safety is at the forefront of everyone's mind when kids come to school in the morning. We encourage people to come out and vote October 17th from noon to 8 p.m. at the Middle High School library.

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Tupper Lake CSD 2023 Capital Improvement Project

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