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Dennis committee to inspect heating, plumbing and asbestos before recommending reuse or demolition of Wixen building
Summary
A five-member Dennis committee agreed to hire a heating contractor and arrange plumbing scoping and asbestos follow-up to refine costs and feasibility for temporarily reopening the Wixen school gym, delaying any recommendation to put permanent funding on a warrant.
A five-member town committee in Dennis voted to pursue technical inspections and updated cost estimates for the Wixen school building rather than immediately recommend demolition or permanent rehabilitation.
The Chair said the group will first bring a heating/boiler contractor for a visual inspection and then arrange plumbing camera scoping and asbestos-area verification. The inspections are intended to clarify whether pipes, boilers or asbestos-removal needs make temporary reopening feasible and what it would cost.
Committee members told the group they were disappointed by a recent selectmen meeting that they said placed the Wixen discussion at the end of the agenda and did not act on requests from some current and former selectmen and a finance committee member to place the matter on the warrant. One member said a selectman had indicated the town would not proceed if initial costs exceeded about $1,000,000; another member said the selectmen’s chairman prefers demolition.
The Chair described three options the committee weighed: asking the selectmen for clarification about the town’s willingness to spend on Wixen; continuing to gather technical information (heating, plumbing scoping, asbestos); or recommending that the town allocate money now to open the gym temporarily and leave any permanent funding to voters. Members agreed to gather more information before making a recommendation.
On technical points, committee members said the group will confirm whether a specific bathroom drains to a 4,500-gallon main and will ask a plumbing scoper to camera-test toilets and lines to establish whether leaks or compromised pipes exist. "You're good to go with numbers of bathrooms," the Chair quoted the plumbing inspector as saying after inspecting fixtures in the building. The group also discussed asking a heating contractor whether boilers and loops can be restarted safely and whether frozen or burst pipes would require opening walls or floors.
Members discussed asbestos-removal estimates and said they would subtract areas the committee does not intend to use from a referenced 47,000 figure to compute removal scope. They also reviewed past utility-cost records and procurement constraints; one member recalled that work under $50,000 may not require a formal request for proposals, though another member said that threshold had recently changed.
The committee discussed available town funds and reported roughly $270,000 across accounts that could be drawn on for limited work; members cautioned that major rehabilitation would require substantially more money and selectmen support. Named contractors and local plumbers were suggested for scoping work, and members volunteered to coordinate with DPW and town plumbing and building inspectors to arrange access.
The group agreed to schedule the next meeting after the heating-inspection and plumbing-scoping are completed and to use the inspection results to prepare a more detailed presentation for the selectmen and, if appropriate, a warrant recommendation or cost estimate for voters. A procedural motion to adjourn was made and seconded; the Chair called for a vote and members responded "Aye." The motion passed unanimously.
The committee did not make a final decision on demolition or permanent rehabilitation; it adopted a course of fact-finding and cost verification as the next step.
