With sights still set on putting an Academy School question on the November 2018 ballot, the Board of Selectmen (BOS) recently appointed members to the Ad-Hoc Academy Building Guidance Committee. The committee is charged with helping to find a viable option for the aging school building that can go before the public for a vote.

The BOS appointed the members at its regular meeting on June 26. The board opened the agenda to appoint Kathryn Hunter, Robert Card, Jerry Davis, Henry Griggs, Tom Scarpati, Bob Hale, and Sarah Barrett.

Selectman Scott Murphy said about 15 people had raised their hands to be on the committee and that the board worked to ensure multiple different groups in town were represented on the committee including individuals from historical groups, the Save Academy group, businesses, and community members at large. Murphy also said the BOS hopes Griggs will serve as chair of the committee.

The board started discussing the potential charge for the Ad-Hoc Academy School Guidance Committee in late April. Following several public hearings at which the board heard numerous residents express displeasure with the potential development options on the table for Academy, the board recently decided to take a step back, refocus, and gather more information.

The process started at a special BOS meeting on April 12, when the board outlined and voted for a total of nine next steps to further the Academy School development process: 1) establish an ad-hoc academy building committee, 2) discover costs of building demolition only, 3) discover costs of demolition and building afresh a structure for town or community use, 4) develop preliminary costs of building rehabilitation for town or community use, 5) solicit proposals from the four responding developers for building-only proposals, 6) explore grant and public funding opportunities for any future use, 7) solicit opinion from historic stakeholders, 8) request the Board of Education provide a timeline for the return of Island Avenue School, and 9) take other steps necessary to be consistent with the objectives of the process.

The board settled on a charge for the committee at its meeting on May 14. The committee will gather information on various options, present that information to the public, and then ensure “that a comprehensive and unbiased survey of Madison taxpayers and residents is conducted with regards to the future use of the Academy School building and fields using a polling firm specified by the Board of Selectmen.”

Committee members will be given all existing information on the building to aid in the process and the total number of committee members has been set at seven. The committee is charged with presenting the results of the poll or survey to the BOS at a later date so that a question can go before the public this November.

At the meeting on June 26, Murphy said the intent of the committee is to go out and survey the public. Selectman Bruce Wilson said he hopes the committee can bring some clarity to the future of Academy.

“This came about as we were recognizing that the community was becoming outspoken against certain uses of the property, but we were not getting consensus from the community about what they would support,” Wilson said. “This committee’s charge is to discover what that successful referendum question looks like. In other words, what is the next phase of Academy’s life that has the support of as many people in the community as we can possibly get rallied around it? I am not going to pretend that we can make everybody happy, but I think we can find something that makes most people happy.”