Assembly rejects Pacific High roof design

Click here for iFriendly audio.

The Sitka Assembly rejected an early design for renovations at Pacific High School last night. The Assembly instead approved an alternate design that puts a sloped roof on the building, but won’t allow the school to use the roof as a meeting and gardening space, as it had hoped.

The debate was heated at times, and at one point, Mayor Cheryl Westover ordered the microphones turned off when another Assembly member was called out of order.

The Assembly first raised concerns about the design for Pacific High School’s remodel in December. Some Assembly members questioned whether the roof, which appeared flat, would hold up in Sitka’s rainy weather.

Having a flat deck on the roof would allow students to use the space for meetings and gardening. The design allowed water to flow through the deck onto a sloped surface underneath that would channel it away and off the roof.

Project architect Garrett Burtner, from the Anchorage firm of McCool Carlson Green, called the design a “low-sloped roof,” and said it would accommodate drainage. So did Municipal Engineer Stephen Weatherman, who said he initially questioned why the roof didn’t have a peak, but that he understood the school wanted to use the roof for instruction and activities, and that the design planned for Pacific High was a relatively proven system, so long as it’s well-constructed.

But doubts persisted.

“I’ve had some experience with flat roofs,” Assembly member Pete Esquiro said. “In spite of having been told by the professionals what I could expect from roofs, I’ve yet to get a guarantee from anybody, other than what the manufacturers of the materials say they’ll do.”

The more than $2.2 million remodel of Pacific High School was approved by voters in 2010. The state will pick up two-thirds of the bill, with the city paying for the other third. The roof design was an important component for the building’s students and staff, who weighed in on the design process.

Pacific High teacher Mandy Summer was on the building design committee. She told the Assembly that students at the school are hands-on learners who don’t necessarily excel by sitting at a desk and working all day.

“We have been working on developing a gardening program and trying to supplement our lunch program,” Summer said. “We have students that work with AmeriCorps volunteers to make our lunches for the rest of the students and the rest of the school every day.”

The lunch program is also career education. Students graduate with food worker cards, and some training they can use to get jobs. District officials had hoped to use the roof as an easy pathway to the neighboring Southeast Alaska Career Center, which has a commercial kitchen. That would allow the lunch program to expand beyond the confines of the school’s existing kitchen, and free up space in Pacific High School for other instruction.

Assembly member Mike Reif said that was unnecessary, and that they could just as easily use another commercial kitchen in town; perhaps the home economics room at Sitka High School, or the commercial kitchen owned by the Sitka Fine Arts Camp on the Sheldon Jackson campus.

It was Reif who urged a vote on the design last month. The city owns the school buildings, but Assembly approval doesn’t usually come this early in the process. When the Assembly called for a vote last month, it caught Superintendent Steve Bradshaw by surprise. He mentioned that during last night’s meeting, in this exchange with Reif:

Bradshaw: This is the first time you’ve voted on the 35 percent design of any building I’ve been a part of. And I’ve been a part of every one of them.
Reif: Well, we should do our job better.
Bradshaw: And me too. I’ll assume a certain amount of responsibility.

Bradshaw told the Assembly that education is changing, and that the program at Pacific High School has been wildly successful, earning acclaim from around the state. Bradshaw said he was getting mixed signals from the Assembly – on one hand asking him to consolidate programs into fewer buildings, and on the other hand, asking him to make better use of the buildings he has.

He said that’s what the Pacific High remodel was about: making better use of a building the city already owns, and the district is already using.

“I’m not badmouthing you, and if I’ve offended any one of you, I apologize. That’s not what I’m about,” Bradshaw said. “But what I am about is educating kids. And if this design group feels we can better educate these kids with a flat roof, to me, this Assembly should be supportive of that.”

Reif said he’s proud of voters for supporting the schools, and for approving the money for Pacific High, “but with that pride of the voters approving these bonds, they also expect us to spend that money wisely. And we have to meet needs, not always just wants.”

Mayor Cheryl Westover said she wouldn’t support the design whether the roof is flat or peaked. She’s argued in the past for the Pacific High School program to be entirely located inside the neighboring career center. Monday night, she suggested it might even move into Sitka High School, even if it operates in its own part of the building.

Westover said the school doesn’t need to grow, that the schools are losing students – and with it, money – and that if Pacific High School expanded it could take students away from Sitka High.

“Cheryl, your concern about students leaving the school district is a valid concern,” said Phil Burdick, co-principal of Pacific High. He said his school is a way to keep students in the district, not a competitor to it.

“The students that we have are students that wouldn’t be in the school district. They wouldn’t be at Sitka High School, for whatever reason – because of the style of learner they are, because of their life experience, because of x, y and z. Nobody knows every experience a student can have that pushes them out of school,” Burdick said. “All I know is that I catch them. And I’ve caught hundreds of students in my 15 years. And that money has stayed in the school district.”

Assembly member Thor Christianson said he would support the low-sloped roof, “but what really irritates me about this is that the people on the committee, the people on the school board, are not who’s going to get yelled at when it leaks. We are.”

Mim McConnell and Phyllis Hackett joined Christianson in supporting the low-sloped roof, but the majority opposed it, and the design was rejected.

That move upset Assembly member Phyllis Hackett, who raised her objections as the Assembly was discussing an alternate design for the building, and whether it would comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Hackett’s objection to the previous vote was deemed off topic by Mayor Cheryl Westover, who called Hackett out of order.

Hackett: Well, I would like to start out by saying I have never been so disappointed in this Assembly. Off-topic or not, I have to say that. Just by the feel in this room and the tenor, I think that the disrespect shown to the community…
Westover: OK, Ms. Hackett.
Hackett: …and the school board…
Westover: Wait, Ms. Hackett, you’re out of order.
Hackett: … is uncalled for. But the other thing I would like to say…
Westover: Ms. Hackett.
Hackett: … is that I think ADA compliance is very important to keep in mind.”

And when Hackett refused to yield to Westover, the mayor ordered deputy clerk Sara Peterson to turn off the microphones. They stayed that way for 14 seconds, Hackett stopped, and the meeting went on.

Before it was over, two citizens had weighed in on the Assembly’s decision as well.

“Engineering staff was asked about their professional opinions and they brought forth those professional opinions, and it just seemed like they were discounted,” said resident John Bartlett. “I don’t know if you guys have any clue how many flat roofs are in town, or low-sloped roofs, but this is one of them, right here. The Bayview building, the building next to it, Stereo North, SEARHC…”

But Sitka resident Karen Christner took the opposite view. She said when she first heard about the proposed roof on Pacific High School, she was “appalled.”

“Thank you very much for protecting my interests,” Christner said. “I want to have a good school there, but I don’t want to have a school that we’ll have to be repairing all the time because the roof is flat, or slightly sloped.”

The alternative roof that was finally approved by the Assembly will go back into the hands of the school district and its architectural firm. They’ll bring back a finalized design for approval at a future meeting.