Meeting transcript
Special BOE Meeting
April 14, 2026 · Watch on Zoom · All meetings
Forward to the cloud.
K. So this is a special meeting for the Annover Board of Education. It is 04:03PM eastern time. I'm like, wait. Did I miss it by an hour? American time. Yes. Anyway, so do we need to do the pledge of allegiance? Is that on the agenda? No? Or can we just go? Go ahead.
Okay. We're here, basically to vote between the two that we had narrowed it down to for the RFP for the bathroom project. Is there I know I sent some emails that I forwarded to you guys. One was from Jeff Murray. One was from Bill. Bree sent an email out to everyone with kind of opinion of people that she talked to. And then, Eric Sanderson, I sent an email. It was probably, like, maybe two hours ago pretty recently, so I don't know if everyone saw that one. Sure. I can tell you guys, I did talk to, people at the Durham School. And I think, Val, you you talked to some other, school that that they had done a project at as well. Right? Because they Where? Got it. Secondino. Secondino. Okay.
Durham said that they did a good job and that it was on schedule. That's pretty much what I got. So does anyone have other questions, comments, what they looked at? Does anyone wanna make a motion to vote on who we're gonna pick?
I can make a motion. I motion that we pick secondino to complete the batch.
Would anyone like to second that? I'll second that. Second Okay. Okay. And any any discussion on it before we vote? I would like to talk to you about the change in the
choice. Before when we we met at our last meeting,
everybody has said they were were in favor of Richardson Richards Corporation, and we had also said that you generally don't pick the most expensive or the least expensive. You try to get something in the middle is what I was told. And, actually, it's I'm surprised you can tell me. We have a letter that came from from Anderson.
And he's he seemed to still recommend and favor the Richardson. I feel that no matter who you pick, I don't care if you pick the most expensive one, the least expensive one. It's a crapshoot when you do something like this. You try to stack your deck in in your favor, and you try to choose the right one. And you get all the information you can get. And I think that this group did a very good job. And the people on the committee that were involved, I think you did an excellent job in researching it and such. I I'm kind of torn by what was said earlier to what we've said now with all these emails that went back and forth. I was unsure of what was prodding the change in thinking. So,
Jerry, I can I can tell you from my perspective? I reached out to my brother. He has an architecture degree from University of Hartford, a master's degree in architecture from RPI, and he has worked for a design firm in Brooklyn that does large scale renovations for the past fifteen years. He is currently the c o COO, but he has also managed the projects at the project level. And I'm late to thinking of him as an expert in bringing him in. But but at the seventh hour, I was like, you know what? Eleventh hour, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go ask for his expertise. He
doesn't know the history of anything. I provided him with all of the RFPs and the building plans. And, obviously, he has a lot of experience with building plans. He has a degree in architecture, and this was what he said. He said based on the brief review of the RFP documents and without prior knowledge of their working history, rank the candidates in the following order. Second, Dino, leading edge, and then finally, Richards. He wouldn't have even considered the other ones. And we know for other reasons why we weren't considering leading edge. Right? So Right. This ranking is based on the comprehensiveness of the proposals and the inclusion of detailed schedules. I prefer Prefer Secondino because they are a long standing family owned business that self performs much of their work. This typically allows for better cost control and adherence to the schedule compared to the firms that subcontract everything.
So that's that was his stance. And that I think the other Jeff Murray said. Go ahead, Phyllis.
That I was just saying that affirms what I read in in Jeff Murray's, and I know Bill DeRozier's had also commented on that as well. And I guess, as much as I love the expertise of Fuss and O'Neil, we had a committee for a reason. And I greatly appreciate the input of Jeff Murray and Bill DeRoziers, and Eric Sanderson seems to have changed his mind. And that's just fine. That's one prerogative to do so when faced with a bunch of different RFPs or proposals rather. So I think it's terrific. And we should bottom line, we need to get going ASAP, get somebody Yes. Contracted,
and and assure that the work is gonna be done this summer. That's the most important to me.
Yep. That's definitely the most important thing. The only other thing I would say, and I can't remember who it was that pointed it out, but they were talking about the change orders and the prices of what was listed per, like, per amount. And secondinos were significantly lower than than some of the others. So if we talk about, like, right, once they start drilling and digging and then they have to do additional square footage or or feet of work, like, that additional fee would be less than what the other ones were. So Yeah. You're already starting up $25,000
ahead. Yeah. That was Jeff Murray's point. And, again, the expertise is greatly appreciated because I would never have known to look at change orders and whatnot.
Yeah. Does does anyone else have further discussion before we go ahead and call a vote?
I just wanted to add, you know, I I kind of would echo a little bit of what Jerry said and also what Shannon said. You know, my preference, I think, has been the Richards group, but I'm not the expert. And it seems like we've asked a lot of experts, and a lot of folks who know a lot more than I do about the construction industry. So I'm 100%, you know, happy to, follow their lead and their expertise, and and and I'm ready to, to vote. Okay.
And I'm ready to vote too, and I wanna thank the people who went and solicited other opinions and other experts, if I can use the word. But I I wanna thank you for the time you put into this. It's not an easy thing. And you when you sign the contract, you hold your breath and you pray. And hold your breath until it's done and everybody's happy.
So thank you to all of you who worked on this. I think we could be confident with Secadena. I mean, this this project is right up their wheelhouse. You know, it's it's it's what they do, and they they gave us a complete package, complete timeline, and everything. And, you know, they've done a lot of municipal bathrooms. So I think that, you know, is a big plus plus the fact that they're all in house. So I don't think Okay. Call the question. Okay. Question. Yep. Marcy. Yes. Okay. Shannon? Yes. Sharon? Yes. Jerry? Yes.
Brie? Yes. Okay. And I will vote yes as well. Terrific. Okay. So we're adjourn. Oh, no. To adjourn.
I don't No. No. That's all I had to do. Kate, I will get that letter out
you since we're not here. I will get that letter out for you, so that it meet the guidelines of the RFP. For tomorrow. I'm just asking you. Question too.
And that is we had talked about asking maybe Fuss and O'Neil or somebody to kind of act as a general contractor, or do we no longer need that? Or
has somebody just felt like we talked about need I think we might need someone to oversee the project, but we don't need to decide that right now tonight. I just wanted to ask. Okay. You guys did you guys did something somewhere when you did the roof. When you did the roof, you had somebody doing that. And I think we could probably pick somebody local.
We could try to go out with somebody local. I was I was just wondering. Wasn't there an amount that we already paid to Fossil O'Neil to give us contract administration? Up until the destruct the what demolition. Yeah.
But at that point then, once the other contractor takes over Okay. It's it's not for the whole project. It was just through that. I see. Then I think Jeff made that comment. We talked about it, and Shannon, it's a good idea that you'd want someone as a construction manager adviser. Okay? That's a very common thing just to be kinda keeping an eye on things, you know, looking for problems, making sure the contractors be enough front and forward with what they're reporting. By all means, if there's someone that we could get on board to provide a CMA type of construction manager adviser, that would be a well thought out thing to do.
Well and if now, you know, now we're starting 25,000 less, like, we can afford to pay someone to to do that, to oversee things. So we'll we'll consider it, but we don't have to vote. We don't have to do anything with that tonight. So Motion to adjourn.
Oh, wait a minute. Don't we have a public comment on the agenda? Yes. We do. We do. Yeah. So Jeff and Bill just commented.
I'm just teasing you. Go ahead. No comments. Kim Persons. No comment.
Thank you. I can't see everybody. Sorry about that. That's that's everyone. Unless Jeff or Bill has something else to say. All set. Nope. Okay. Thank you, guys.
Welcome to adjourn. Enjoy Ireland and Germany. You seconded it. Did someone second? Second it. Okay. Jerry seconds. K. You're you're, four fourteen. Yep. Thank you. Bye. Happy sing. Happy to sing. Good night, everybody. Marie, thank you.