Mt Greylock Subcommittee Asks Questions

The Mount Greylock School Committee wants a little more information before ordering new construction bid documents for an overhaul to the athletic fields at the middle-high school.

iBerkshires.com reports Boston architect Perkins Eastman quoted the district a price of $44,000 to redo the documents that would form the heart of a request for proposals to install an artificial turf field and make needed modifications to other facilities to bring the school property into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and Title IX.

If the School Committee puts the project out to bid this winter, it would be the district's second effort to get a general contractor for the proposed project. The first time around, Perkins Eastman, which designed the addition/renovation project at Mount Greylock, also was the architect on the fields project.

When the School Committee last month saw the price tag for a new set of design documents, it decided to refer the question to its Finance Subcommittee for consideration, and on Thursday that subcommittee met to discuss next steps.

"I'd like to know two things," Michelle Johnson told her colleagues. "What went wrong [in September 2019], and how are they going to fix it is of primary importance. And does this [$44,000] fee reflect a discount, for lack of a better term, as a sort of mea culpa.

"It's basic customer service, I think."