Photos by Tom Rivers
ALBION – Members of the First United Methodist Church in Albion have served about 150 lasagnas dinners this evening from the historic church at the corner of Platt and East State streets.

Pastor Jack Laskowski hands a plate of lasagna to Diane Scharping, right, while Rachel Morasco cooks some pasta in back.

Kae Wilbert, right, served bowls of salad to Ed Neal, left, and his grandson Justin Robinson.

The church serves community dinners four times a year. This is expected to be the final dinner served from the church before the congregation leaves the site. It will have church services from Christ Episcopal Church beginning on April 5, Easter Sunday. The United Methodists will have their services at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays with Sunday school to follow.

Ellie Lockwood is at the table full of brownies. The support pillars, used to help prop up the roof in the sanctuary, can be partially seen. The congregation is leaving the site due to the roof problems. The church doesn’t have the $1 million need for the roof replacement.

The church wants to continue its quarterly community dinners and is planning to use the kitchen and dining hall at the First Presbyterian Church. A community supper will also be served from the site the last Wednesdays of each month, a tradition at the United Methodist Church.

Church member Kae Wilbert said the congregation is sad to leave the building and faces lots of work before vacates the site. However, she is pleased to see the emerging colloborations with other churches.

“We’re all glad a decision has been made,” Wilbert said. “We’re tired of being sad and being focused primarily on the church building.”

More roof repairs, building maintenance needed

Photo by Tom Rivers – A proposed building project would demolish the current district office, a metal structure from 1964 that was intended to be temporary – 20 years at the most. The district office employees will move to space in the middle school.

ALBION – The school district will present a $14.37 million capital project to voters on May 19, a project that will address many maintenance issues throughout the district campus.

Putting the work in a capital project will make Albion eligible for state aid, perhaps as much as 90 percent of the cost. Albion already has $1.3 million in a capital reserve account to cover nearly the entire local match. Albion also has some leftover state EXCEL funds that could be applied as the local share, said Michael Bonnewell, district superintendent.

The district’s overall campus is in good shape, but several smaller projects should upgrade the buildings and grounds, reducing maintenance and some energy costs for years to come, the Board of Education was told on Monday.

“Your buildings are in great shape,” said Luc Lefebvre, a senior project architect with King & King Architects in Syracuse. “We’re always surprised at how well they are maintained.”

Lefebvre worked with other building and infrastructure specialists on a building conditions survey of the district. The conditions survey is required by the State Education Department every five years.

Lefebvre has worked on two other building condition surveys before with Albion. While the campus doesn’t have major glaring needs, many projects could be tackled in a capital project.

Lefebvre and the other inspectors made a list of priority projects that were approved by the Board of Education.

The project would replace roofs, upgrade parking lots, improve drainage on athletic fields, resurface the track, and add some exterior lighting and utilize more LED lights.

The District Office, currently housed in what was intended to be a temporary metal building in the 1964, would be demolished and those offices would shift to existing space at the middle school. Moving the offices to the middle school will save the district from completing needed repairs to the current “temporary” space, Bonnewell said. Most of the district office space was replaced in a 2000 capital project.

The capital project, outlined during Monday’s Board of Education meeting, would also include stronger doors at school entrances and card access controls.

The fire alarm would be replaced with a new system at the elementary school, which would also see a relocated flag pole to the front of the building, HVAC upgrades, additional exterior lighting, and a new playground on west side.

The school would also receive a shading system on the south side to reduce solar heat gain in the warmer months. That side of the building gets hotter than other parts of the school in September and October, and in May and June when the weather warms up.

Albion also wants to replace some single-pane windows in the middle school with more energy-efficient windows, upgrade the sound booth, improve the boiler and heating system, add exterior lights to northeast side of the school, widen the sidewalk by bus loading zone and replace decaying steel hand railing with aluminum ones.

At the high school, the 1,200 high school lockers that are 9 inches wide would be replaced with 800 lockers that would be a foot wide. The bigger lockers would allow students to better store their thick backpacks and winter coats.

The high school library would also be repurposed with new technology to meet the needs of the 21st Century, Lefebvre said.

The district also was encouraged to put in a new condensing boiler system, to replace a tri-fuel system. The condenser system would use less energy.

The capital would also include work on the bus garage, adding an emergency generator, and new doors and lighting.

If the voters give the project their blessing on May 19, the construction documents would need to be prepared and sent to the State Education Department for its review, which is currently a 7-month process.

Lefebvre said it will be a tight schedule to get everything on track so bids could be approved in spring 2016 with work to start that summer. The project would be finished in the summer 2017.

ALBION – The Village Board sees a talented group of village employees who could use their skills to help nearby municipalities and also bring in needed revenue for the village.

Albion’s sewer employees already are contracted to run Holley’s sewer plant. That agreement started last September. Albion has since been approached by other communities for sewer, water and infrastructure work.

A deal with the Village of Elba for Albion to manage that sewer plant, for $24,000 a year, seems the most promising. Village Board members, following a recommendation from Sewer Plant Chief Operator Rick Albright, voted to move on working out a deal with Elba, which has 260 sewer customers.

“We’re a marketing a service,” said Mayor Dean London.

Albright and Dale Brooks, the DPW superintendent, told the board they were willing to manage their staffs to serve other communities, and bring in money for the village.

The village departments need to be careful not to overextend themselves, and need to ensure there are backup employees to step in leadership roles, Village Attorney John Gavenda advised.

“I don’t think we should spread ourselves too thin,” said Village Trustee Pete Sidari.

Trustee Gary Katsanis echoed similar concerns during a Village Board meeting last week.

Albright and Brooks assured the board the village has the staff and expertise and take care of village needs, and do some work for other municipalities.

Brooks has created a price list for services by village employees for other municipalities.

Elba is interested in Albion providing secondary service on waterlines. Albion also wants to talk with towns about village employees maintaining water lines outside the village.

The Village Board wants to first iron out an agreement with Elba, which would like village staff to start work in May at the sewer plant, Albright said.

The Village Board has been discussing the issue for several months. Albright urged the board to reach a decision.

London agreed the village needed resolution. The board will pursue the deal with Elba first and then consider other work with municipalities, weighing the revenue versus demands on village staff.

“We’ve been going back and forth,” London said. “Either we make a plan to go forward or we’re done with it.”

Part of the plan for extending services outside the village should include more cross-training of employees so they can work with sewer, water and DPW, he said.