FREEPORT – Officials at Regional School Unit 5 are taking a wait-and-see approach after tri-town voters narrowly approved a $14.6 million bond Nov. 5 for the renovation of Freeport High School. A separate $1.7 million bond pegged for a new turf field was defeated.

Despite the victory, RSU 5 officials will wait to begin the renovations until after a Dec. 17 vote by Freeport residents on whether to formally begin the process of withdrawal. If residents approve the withdrawal question, no work on the school will be done until that process is completed – which could be up to 18 months.

“I am very pleased at the support of our taxpayers,” said RSU 5 Superintendent Shannon Welsh. “It’s greatly appreciated, we’ll be able to address the significant needs of our students and staff. I am hopeful we will be able to move forward with this in January.”

During an Oct. 9 meeting, the 11-member RSU 5 board voted not to move forward with the project until Welsh was authorized to do so, a contingency plan in case Freeport voters followed through with the withdrawal process.

“The board made it clear that we would not move forward with the architect until we knew what Freeport was going to do,” said Welsh.

The first nine months of the renovation involves designing a construction blueprint with an engineer and architect, said Welsh. If Freeport voters rejected the withdrawal measure, the initial phase would begin in January. If the measure passes, the fate of the district and bond would be in limbo until Freeport officially became a standalone district. It is a process that could take up to 18 months.

“I don’t believe the board would authorize me to spend any money during that time,” said Welsh. “We don’t have any idea how long it would take.”

The decision by voters, although split, represented a victory for proponents of the renovation, who were dealt a bitter blow when a previous $16.9 million bond proposal was narrowly defeated, 2,202-2,028 on June 11.

The Nov. 5 bond passed 2,324-2,252, with Freeport voters approving the renovation, 1,639-1,029. In Durham, the vote was trounced, 828-467, and in Pownal, it was defeated, 395-218.

The track-and-field bond was defeated, with a total vote of 2,793 to 1,776. It narrowly passed in Freeport, 1,340-1,322, but fell flat in Durham, 966-327, and Pownal, 505-109.

“I am grateful that more than half of the voters in the tri-town area support improvements to education in our district. Now, with the assurance that as a tri-town district we can solve the basic high school facility problem, I am ready to begin to explore the pros and cons of Freeport’s withdrawal,” said Freeport resident Lindsay Sterling. “What I don’t know yet is this: can Freeport alone make greater improvements in education than the three towns combined? I look forward to discussing this with education advocates in the coming weeks.”

For Durham resident Kevin Nadeau, the passage of the renovation bond was encouraging.

“I’m happy the renovation bond passed. I obviously wish Durham had voted in favor of the bond as a town, but the reason the bond passed this time is because the yes vote increased significantly in Durham and Pownal. I wish the field bond had passed, too, but the fact that even Freeport only passed it by 22 votes shows that there just wasn’t overwhelming support for that part of the project,” said Nadeau.

“As to why Durham voters are still leery of the renovation, the withdrawal question in Freeport made a lot of voters nervous about voting in favor of a bond before that question was settled,” he said. “As it was, we picked up 180 yes votes this time around, a 63 percent increase versus the June vote. Without the dark cloud of withdrawal hanging over the vote, I believe we could have turned another 180 no votes into yes, which would have been enough to pass the bond in Durham.”

Moving Freeport Forward, a residents’ group dedicated to removing Freeport from the school district it shares with Durham and Pownal, submitted petitions to the town on Oct. 17 with 416 signatures to trigger a vote to decide whether to begin the process of withdrawing from RSU 5. The petition is the first of a 22-step process for withdrawal as mandated by the state. If residents approve the question, the next step would be to form a committee to study withdrawal.

“We are relieved at the narrow passage of the high school renovation,” said Charly Haversat, a spokeswoman for Moving Freeport Forward, in an email. “With this safety net in place, Freeport is protected from a worst-case scenario and has two choices on Dec. 17 – reclaiming our own excellent, local school district or staying within the RSU. Unfortunately, a repaired building alone will not raise Freeport High School’s achievement levels back to where they were before consolidation. The contentious RSU environment is driving bad bargains that serve neither our taxpayers nor our students. Tuesday’s vote is a prime example.

“Even when faced with an escalating level of overcrowding, emerging safety issues and academic stagnation, Durham and Pownal both voted overwhelmingly against a stripped-down high school renovation project,” she said. “It’s time to make a clean break and get a fresh start.”

The Freeport Town Council has scheduled a public hearing on the proposal for Tuesday, Dec. 3, at 6:30 p.m., at the Town Council Chambers in the Town Hall.

The revised bond includes moving the industrial arts department to the existing cafeteria location, which is approximately 3,000 square feet. The seating area for a new cafeteria food court would be 4,500 square feet, or 50 percent larger, to accommodate roughly 55 percent of the expected enrollment in 10 years. The bond would repair the main athletic fields, with no future plans to construct a track or convert to a synthetic turf field. In addition, two-thirds of the field hockey field would receive drainage repairs and new grass.

Freeport voters fill the polls Nov. 5, where a $14.6 million bond to renovate Freeport High School passed handily. It was, however, soundly defeated by voters in Durham and Pownal.