Selectmen Appoint GHS Building Committee

At its July 11 special meeting, the Board of Selectmen, with the help of the Selection Committee, appointed nine regular members and two alternates to the Guilford High School (GHS) Building Committee.

Selected to be on the committee were Scott Pinckney, Mary Beeman, Larry Marcik, Bill Mulligan, Scott Orenstein, Barbara Casey, Todd Williams, Guido Petra, and Margaret Ryan. The two alternates are James Axley and Thomas Gannon.

"I want to thank the Selection Committee for the enormous amount of work they completed in such a short period of time," First Selectman Joseph Mazza said.

The Selection Committee was made of up four elected officials: Charles Havrda from the Board of Selectmen, John Ireland from the Board of Education, Michael Ayles from the Board of Finance and the GHS Options Review Committee, and Doug Baldwin from the Standing Building Committee.

The committee received letters/résumés from 39 interested and qualified residents. Havrda said the résumés from the remaining applicants will be passed along to the GHS Building Committee because later in the process additional subcommittees or expertise may be needed.

"The plan is to not only have the primary building committee, but also lots of subcommittees available for people to participate in," Ireland said. "There's lots of different people-we have attorneys, finance people, architects, a teacher, educational planner, [and] sustainability expert, so there's a whole good slew or mix of people."

Ireland said that there will also be opportunity for plenty of community input. The GHS Building Committee meetings will be open to the public. Ireland said that, as of July 11, the committee was trying to plan their first meeting for Wednesday, July 20, after press time.

There will also be liaisons appointed from the boards of Education, Finance, and Selectmen; the Efficiency Task Force; and Standing Fields and Pre-Disaster Mitigation/Emergency Services committees as well as members of the community.

Ayles said that an important aspect the selection committee looked at when reviewing the applicants was the individual's involvement with the community-whether or not they had kids in the school system, knowledge of the faculty, how many years they've lived in Guilford, etc.

Those appointed to the GHS Building Committee average 15 years in town.

A construction manager will oversee the design and then the construction phase of the project. Design drawings will be made throughout the next year and construction is set to begin in fall 2012. Construction will take about 2½ to 3 years to complete; the plan is for students to enter the new facility in the 2014-'15 school year.