Cape Elizabeth voters may be asked to spend $86.5 million on a new school project as early as this June.

The school board voted unanimously on Monday to put forth an $86,499,993 project that would build a new middle school, conduct renovations and additions at the elementary school and repairs at the high school, requesting the Town Council put it on the ballot of an upcoming election. The board did the same with a $1,725,000 project that would install a solar array on the new middle school’s roof.

The Town Council will decide whether to put it on the ballot, and at which election, but the board has urged the council to go for the election this June. Estimates from Harriman Architects, the designers and consultants for the project, suggest the cost could increase by as much as $1 million if the vote is delayed until November.

Three-school approach

The school board is calling the project a “three-school phased approach.” If built, the new middle school is expected to last 40-60 years before needing major renovations or eventual replacement. Meanwhile, if passed, the town could expect the elementary and high schools to need significant investments again in the next 15 to 20 years. “Resetting the clock” on the current middle school by replacing it has been a term echoed by school board members and supporters in Cape Elizabeth of building a new school to avoid needing a hefty investment in all three schools simultaneously again.

The project is derived from the $89.9 million proposal that was rejected by voters last November by less than 200 votes. That referendum included an additional $4.8 million for the town to preserve the original 1934 school building, which is currently part of the middle school, bringing that failed bond order to $94.7 million.

The 1934 building, a backup heating system and a STEM addition at the elementary school have been removed from the new proposal to cut costs. Locker rooms and other spaces throughout the school are also seeing reductions between the 2024 proposal and the current one.

Some repairs and renovations at the elementary and high school, originally included in the last proposal, are now proposed to be conducted via the school’s capital improvement plan budget over the next 12 years.

School board members at the meeting on Monday said they believe this is the project that addresses the educational needs of students in Cape Elizabeth while also being fiscally responsible.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing to me is we address the educational needs of our schools – that’s our job, by statute – and put forward something, I think, in my view, is the most affordable option to get there,” said board Chair Phil Saucier. “I would like this to be cheaper. I’ve scrubbed this as many times I can and, in my view, this is where we are today.”

While the $86.5 million cost upfront is more expensive than other options considered in the past consisting of just renovations and additions, the board believes the long-term cost will be less as the middle school won’t need a large investment any time soon.

“I am telling the truth when I say I believe that a new middle school will cost taxpayers less than any other plan,” said board member Caitlin Sweet. “I don’t support this plan because I want a new school. I support this plan because I don’t want to overburden the taxpayers.”

Cape Voters, a group that campaigned against previous school project proposals, “reacted with dismay” when the board moved the $86.5 million project forward on Monday.

“By ignoring previous defeats, the school board is acting in bad faith by rejecting the express desires of Cape voters,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday. “The school board’s refusal to consider alternatives, after the November election result, stands in sharp contrast with neighboring Scarborough, which brought its School Building Advisory Committee back to develop new alternatives after failing at the polls.”

They also took issue with much of the repairs to the high school and elementary school not being directly part of the new proposal and that the 1934 building is no longer part of the scope of work.

“It is very likely that the school board’s action will provoke even stronger opposition this time around,” Cape Voters stated.

Back to the drawing board

Two former School Building Advisory Committee members, Larry Benoit and Michael Hussey, who opposed the November 2024 proposal, also oppose the one the school board crafted over the past three months.

After the defeat of the November 2024 proposal, they hoped the school board would have gone back to the drawing board rather than modify the plan that failed.

“At that time, I believe the school board should have reached out to the community and decided that they needed to take a fresh look and see if there’s a new approach that could result in a successful project to fix our schools,” Benoit said.

In January, Benoit and Hussey came up with their own plan: a new, three-story wing for the middle school along with additions and renovations at the elementary school and repairs at the high school. What they put together draws elements from multiple options the committee considered and, based on that work, the two estimated it would cost $64 million.

“It wasn’t that complicated once Larry and I started putting our heads together because these are all concepts that had been discussed,” Hussey said. “We put together the (PowerPoint) deck and sent it to the Town Council and school board.”

The board requested Harriman Architects take a look at the plan. Lisa Sawin of Harriman addressed the plan at a school board public forum on Feb. 11.

“It appears that our diagrams have been taken and modified to represent an option that we did not come up with,” Sawin said. “Our numbers have been used out of context and, essentially, it’s a manipulation of our material. We take exception to this … One could take that information and imply this is a Harriman number, a Harriman option, when it is not. The reuse of our materials without being asked to manipulate them needs to stop.”

She later emphasized, “We do need to ask that people stop using our diagrams and manipulating them and turning them around and referring to our work as another option.”

Sawin also noted issues and a lack of clarity within the plan, such as that it does not have enough programming space, it’s not clear whether it right-sizes the band and chorus rooms, and doesn’t account for the full costs to heat the proposed middle school wing.

Benoit and Hussey wanted to meet with Harriman Architects to go over their plan and address some of these concerns, but said they were not given the chance. They also refute some of Sawin’s claims, like that the plan is missing programming space and the music spaces aren’t right-sized.

“We requested an essential meeting with Harriman Architects to discuss the details of the project and answer many questions that would routinely and ordinarily arise in a project of this size, scope and cost,” the two said in a joint letter to the Town Council following the board’s vote. “The school board requested a review of the citizen’s solution and then in bad faith failed to arrange a crucial meeting with Harriman before deciding to request an $86.5 million bond for a new middle school.”

In a statement to the Sentry, Saucier said the board values the wealth of input they’ve received from residents, but what Benoit and Hussey came forward with does not meet some of the school district’s needs.

“Since we began addressing the needs of our aging school buildings in 2017, we’ve received valuable feedback from many community members, all of which has been seriously and carefully considered,” Saucier wrote. “Regarding (this) suggestion from community members, Harriman Architects reviewed it and determined that it did not meet our school’s significant needs in several important areas.”