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Article 34 at Sudbury’s Annual Town meeting calls for additional funding for a renovation and repair of the Atkinson Pool. The initial draft of the article had a placeholder number of $429,000. That would be added to the prior budget of $2,350,000. (Other articles in recent years have been approved for different components of the pool.)
This week, the Town presented the final number after rebidding the project, evaluating alternatives and conducting deeper analysis on the contingency funds needed for a project that seeks to, among many other things, resolve a leak that has proven to be rather evasive during prior attempts to fix it.
Prior bids on the project came in well over budget according to Combined Facilities Director Sandra Duran. She has cited cost escalation and tariffs/tariff threats as contributing factors to the high bids.
The total additional ask of Town Meeting is $959,000. A significant portion of that is a healthy contingency budget. Because there are many possible unknowns associated with the leak, including piping that is buried deep beneath concrete, the Town opted to beef up the contingency on the project so ensure they could deal with whatever they might uncover along the way.
The project is funded by debt, so it would require two-thirds of Town Meeting to vote in favor of it for it to pass.
The latest information was presented to the Park and Recreation Commission and the Finance Committee on Thursday, May 1. It was previously reported to the Select Board two days earlier, but the exact number was still being developed. Sudbury’s finance director, Victor Garofalo, presented the sources and uses of the funds:
During discussion in the Finance Committee meeting and the Park and Recreation Commission meeting, the leak in the pool was a focus area. The project, as currently conceived, would prioritize leak detection from the start, using a new team and new methods as needed. Prior efforts to detect the leak led to replacement of significant amounts of piping at the pool, but the leak persisted.
During the Park and Recreation Commission meeting, department staff explained that an Environment Protection Agency investigation of the leak was closed because the chlorine level in the pool is below even the maximum allowable level for drinking water. While that may put some environmental concerns at ease, the cost of filling the pool regularly is not an insignificant expense for the department according to comments from Park and Recreation Director Dennis Mannone in recent months. It’s also an operational disruption for staff, who need to fill the pool and maintain appropriate water quality.
With all of the information presented, the article received votes of support from the Finance Committee and Park and Recreation Commission. The Select Board opted to wait for the final number, and will likely take a vote at their Monday meeting just before the start of Town Meeting. If passed at Town Meeting, the work would be started sometime in August of this year, with completion targeted for November according to Combined Facilities Director, Sandra Duran.