PA system fixes, fire alarm upgrade project expanding

LANSDALE >> Just weeks after North Penn’s school board started upgrades to fire alarms at several local schools, that project is expanding.

A board committee has voted ahead an expansion of that project to include upgrades for the public address system at Gwynedd Square Elementary too.

“In the beginning of March, late February, we started experiencing problems with the Gwynedd Square PA system,” said director of facilities and operations Tom Schneider.

“We brought in the local technical representative for this area to review that system. That system is obsolete, and parts are not available,” he said.

Over the past several years staff have developed a full list of all repairs, upgrades, and replacements needed at district facilities, ranking them by several criteria including expected lifespan and urgency of the fix. PA systems at several other schools have been tackled in recent years, most notably to North Penn High School as that system failed, and currently to Knapp Elementary as a school-wide renovation project is underway there, Schneider told the board. A proposal for $35,000 has been received to design the replacement of the old Gwynedd Square with a newer one, but the same design services could cost less, just over $3,500, if done by Snyder Hoffman Associates, the same firm already contracted to plan a series of fire alarm system upgrades at several other schools, in a deal approved in January, just before the Gwynedd Square PA system started to fail.

“That way, we would have an integrated PA system, that eventually we would have across the entire district,” Schneider said.

“We are able to ring bells, so we do have the system semi-operational, but not automated, so we would request this work be added to the Snyder Hoffman contract” already in place for work at the other schools, he said.

Doing so could allow the PA system to be upgraded over the upcoming summer while the fire alarm work is also done, Schneider told the board. Facilities committee chairman Jonathan

Kassa noted that the Gwynedd Square PA system is included on the district’s full long-term capital project list, and is rated as a 3.2 on the scoring system of 1 to 5, higher numbers indicating more urgently-needed projects, with a budget estimate of $100,000 when those projects were last discussed.

“This was already high on the list,” Kassa said.

Kassa then asked if the district’s school security staff are aware of the PA system problems, and Schneider said they were; he and district coordinator of safe schools Chris Doerr “are in constant communication,” Schneider said.

The facilities committee then unanimously voted ahead a contract amendment to add the Gwynedd Square work, and the full board could approve it when they meet on April 15.

Fire alarm project expanding: The facilities and operations committee also voted ahead the next step of the fire alarm project itself, and Schneider gave an updated timeline that could go faster than expected.

“The one point I’d like to mention is to accelerate the schedule of the award, so we give the contractor ample time to submit (documents) and order materials,” he said.

The current project timeline calls for the project to be advertised starting in mid-April, with a pre-bid meeting for interested firms slated for May 5 then bids due on May 13. Doing so, Schneider said, could put the project up for possible approval by the full board on May 20, which would mean the bids come in after the facilities and operations committee meeting on April 26, but then the contract could be ahead of the next committee meeting on May 24.

“We will not be bringing it to the facilities and operations committee, if that’s permissible. We would invite the facilities committee to the bid opening, and be involved in the assessment” of the results, Schneider said.

“This is just to accelerate the approval process, so we can get the project underway quicker,” he said.

Kassa asked if staff felt that sped-up timeline without the committee review would still give staff enough time to review the bids and make documents available to the board and public, and district CFO Steve Skrocki said it would.

“Absolutely, it does. And we’ll be sure, even if committee members are unable to attend the bid opening, we’ll share that information with a summary after opening,” Skrocki said. The committee then voted unanimously to authorize staff to proceed on the new schedule.

Tree damage at high school noted: The facilities committee also voted ahead advertising for three annual service contracts, including one likely to have a higher cost than in prior years.

“We don’t typically do this on an annual basis, but we need to do tree removal,” he said.

“We have many, many trees that have succumbed to the Emerald Ash Borer. A lot of the green ash trees in the high school parking lot, have succumbed to the ash borer, and all around the district.”

The Emerald Ash Borer is an invasive green insect that arrived in Montgomery County in the early 2010s, and has caused the deaths of countless ash trees by eating away from their insides.

“We want to take care of those in one large project, to remove those trees so they don’t pose a hazard to the public,” Schneider said.