Hubbardston to pursue MVP grant funds, engineer review for school generator

The Town of Hubbardston planning committee discussed an awarded Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) grant through the Central Mass MRPC to replace the generator at the town school.

Speaker 1 said, “It's called an MVP, and it's out of … the central mass MRPC,” and confirmed the award was intended to fund replacement of the school generator. Members said the next step is to bring an engineer to assess whether the existing pad and site can support an upgraded generator.

Committee members discussed scale and likely costs. Speaker 1 recalled asking for “no more than 50,000” but said she suggested “double that. Maybe even triple that” to cover engineering and installation. She and others referenced a generator spec used for a Breezy Hill project and suggested the Breezy Hill unit “should be big enough” for Hubbardston’s needs. One member estimated engineering and associated work could add “thousand[s]” to the project and said a fully sufficient generator would cost about $100,000.

Members also noted the replacement generator has been contemplated previously as part of work on the public safety building; a committee member said the public safety project’s third phase included a generator in planning documents. Committee members said they have been pursuing this upgrade for years and expect to schedule engineering and siting decisions before committing to procurement.

No formal motion or vote was recorded at the meeting. The committee left the item with a direction to arrange an engineering review and to use the MVP grant funds to fund generator planning and installation where feasible.