Friday, January 27, 2023
Vol. 100, No.4
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A Capella festival
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Meet and Greet
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Trustees meet with St. Paul’s cost estimator
SUMMER WILL RETURN
BY RIKKI MASSAND
Although it’s cold and gray outside, Garden City’s Recreation and Parks Department is looking to fill openings at the Garden City Pool as well as the village’s parks. See page 49.
GC Police Commissioner touts school security at BOE meeting BY KASSARA MCELROY
Garden City’s Police Commissioner Kenneth Jackson provided an update on security in the schools during a Board of Education meeting on Tuesday, January 24th. The discussion came about not because of any particular instance or concern, rather as part of the District’s ongoing partnership with the police department. Officials in attendance discussed the role they play in monitoring and securing
grounds. The GCPD provides lectures to staff, connects with parents, enforces lockdowns and conducts post-lockdown briefs to collect learnings and holds periodic grounds walkthroughs. They said they have a presence at the schools on a daily basis, with heightened activity during events, patrolling in both marked and unmarked cars. “I talk to the other chiefs and nobody seems to really have the relationship we have with this school district. In fact, just this week I stopped by Dr. Sinha’s
office to go over a couple items,” said Jackson. “I want to let you know your administrators and staff really care and do a tremendous job.” Donn Flynn, partner and president of Covert Investigations & Security, added, “Technology has come a long way in the district. Our video surveillance and access control platform made a great enhancement this year. What’s happened in the last six months to a year has been dramatic and See page 37
With a special Board of Trustees’ work session held at Village Hall on Friday, January 20, the board heard from the St. Paul’s project cost estimator consultant Westerman Construction Co. about potential factors that will impact the costs for reusing the historic building. Lloyd Westerman, the principal of the company, first suggested outlining a basic program for the building with the input of Superintendent of Building Giuseppe Giovanniello, the village trustees and the St. Paul’s Committee, “room-by-room items to have.” These involve the general ideas and some aspects like finishes, bathrooms and flooring. “Remember you are not committing to this stuff but ideally it could be quantified, for when the decisions are being made, that even if (Westerman Co.) is not involved any more the board can look at our numbers to see which line items to keep or not, with changes to overall cost,” he said. Trustee Bruce Chester clarified with Westerman that the St. Paul’s Committee already provided potential uses for rooms of the building for creating the cost estimates. According to the Request for Proposals (RFP) the consultant will address three options: demolition, retaining just the facade, or adaptive reuse of St. Paul’s. Mayor Cosmo Veneziale noted that for adaptive reuse of St. Paul’s, the goal would be the least amount of intervention for the building structure as possible, whereas with facadism a new structural support system would be required. He said facadism makes it harder to provide an accurate cost estimate. The mayor added that plug-in components would require even more analysis. Westerman concurred and said demolition and adaptive reuse are not the difficult options for estimating figures, “especially since we have been through the building so we have an idea of where we’d be going with it.” The remedial work that would have to occur at St. Paul’s should facadism be the choice, involves some substantial demolition too. The building would have to be stripped while joists and brickwork would all be evaluated and repaired. After See page 36
GCHS grad to debut new first novel PAGE 12 POAs send casino survey to residents PAGE 6