Procedural Delays Prevent Decision on Repairing Middle School Auditorium Roof

Report on the Meeting of the Amherst Town Council, February 2, 2026, Part 2

Read Part 1 of this report here.

This meeting was a hybrid meeting in theTown Room of Town Hall and on Zoom. It was recorded. 

Present
Mandi Jo Hanneke (President, at large), Jill Brevik and Cathy Schoen (District 1), Amber Cano-Martin and Lynn Griesemer (District 2), Hala Lord and George Ryan (District 3), Pam Rooney and Jennifer Taub (District 4), Ana Devlin Gauthier and Sam MacLeod (District 5), and Andy Churchill and Ellisha Walker (at large)

Staff: Paul Bockelman (Town Manager) and Athena O’Keeffe (Council Clerk)

Although councilors seemed favorably disposed to have Amherst fund the total cost of replacing the leaking Middle School roof over the auditorium when the rest of the roof is replaced under a Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) grant, procedural complications make it difficult to schedule the discussion and vote in a timely manner. 

The auditorium roof is a year or two short of the 25-year age required for the MSBA grant. The other three towns in the region will not hold their town meetings, where spending can be authorized, until after the roof bids are due, and the regional school representatives from those towns doubt whether their finance committees would recommend the extra expense. The estimated cost for the auditorium roof is $1.6 million. Amherst’s share by the state formula would be $1.2 million. Initially, the Regional School Committee took no stand on the auditorium roof, but recently, members unanimously recommended asking Amherst to fund the roof.

The Finance Committee recognized that it would probably be beneficial to replace the auditorium roof at the same time as the contractors and equipment were on site to repair the rest of the roof. They requested additional information from the regional schools on the condition of the auditorium roof and the urgency of the repair, but it was received only hours before this meeting, so the council did not have enough time to review it. The report stated that the “roof is actively leaking onto the stage and actively dripping down the wall of the auditorium. They’re spending a certain amount of money each year on temporary repairs,” according to Finance Committee Chair Cathy Schoen.

When Schoen raised the issue of Amherst providing the funds out of certified free cash or the capital stabilization fund, Council President Mandi Jo Hanneke told her that the matter could not be discussed because it wasn’t on the agenda, and would be a violation of open meeting law. 

With the bids needing to go out by the end of February for the work to be done over the summer, Schoen asked if time could be set aside before the February 9 special meeting to discuss the Charter Review Committee’s recommendations, but Hanneke stated that there was no room on the agenda because the Town Attorney was coming to that meeting for the hour before.

It seemed that the first time the uses proposed for the certified free cash would be on February 23, and those recommendations would be referred to the Finance Committee and not come back to the council for a vote until March. Schoen wanted to have the matter discussed as “unanticipated in the past 48 hours” and ask Town Manager Paul Bockelman to draft a financial order for the council to vote on.

Hanneke maintained, “It is not something that I could not have reasonably anticipated 48 hours in advance, so I will rule out of order any discussion at this time.” 

Schoen responded, “Actually, I had asked to get it on the agenda for tonight and was told it didn’t fit.”

Hanneke then explained that after Schoen approached her regarding adding the middle school roof to the agenda, “I went to the Town Manager and asked if all the financial orders could be ready in time for tonight’s meeting. They could not. Our rules of procedure require that they be ready by Wednesday of the week before a meeting. The vice-president and I determined that all financial orders related to the use of free cash should be presented at once, so that the council gets an entire view of the potential money and appropriations available in the fiscal year for various projects.” She added that she thought the auditorium roof would be included as an alternate on the bid for the rest of the roof, so the funds would not need to be appropriated until the bids were due. She expected that the use of the free cash would be discussed at the March 9 meeting, since the agenda for February 23 was already very full. 

Councilors George Ryan, Andy Churchill, and Jill Brevik expressed support for funding the repair. Brevik said the auditorium roof replacement should take precedence over less urgent items when using the free cash.

Four Town Fiscal Sustainability Group Discussing Long Term Plans for School Financing
Schoen reported that representatives from all four towns in the regional school district met with members of the fiscal sustainability subcommittee of the Regional School Committee and school staff. According to Schoen, the multi-town group “doesn’t do the budget. and it doesn’t do audits. It thinks about larger policy issues, particularly legislative issues around the state budget.” 

The fiscal sustainability group had raised possible questions to explore, including whether the four towns should start to think about potential regionalization again. The Pelham representative talked about potentially not having enough students in Pelham to support the elementary school, with many of the school’s students being school choice students.

There had also been some interest in rethinking the sixth through eighth grade, as a regional sixth through eighth grade middle school, instead of Amherst sixth graders alone being at their own school.

The next Four Towns Meeting to discuss the regional school budget is scheduled for February 28 at 9 a.m.