RUMFORD – When voters go the polls on June 7 to decide whether to pass the SAD 43 proposed $13.9 million budget, they will also have a chance to show whether they favor building a health center and pool at Mountain Valley High School.
Residents will have the chance to give their opinion in a nonbinding vote.
Frank DiConzo, a Rumford SAD 43 board member and chairman of an ad hoc committee that is looking into building the facility, updated the board on Monday on what such a building would look like and do.
He said plans are to build the structure and to fund its operation without using tax money.
Funding for the building, estimated to cost about $2.3 million, would come from grants and foundations. The annual estimated cost to operate it is $275,000. That, he said, would come from health club membership fees.
With 35,000 to 40,000 people living within a 35- to 40-mile radius of Rumford, he believes the facility would have no trouble finding a sufficient number of memberships.
“Once we start getting people, we’ll continue to draw them,” he said.
Plans call for a pool and a wide variety of physical fitness equipment. The fitness equipment came from a federal grant and is currently housed in a section of the high school gym. A walking area may also be set up, he said. The facility would serve both MVHS students and the general public.
Although the building would be owned by the district and ultimately be the responsibility of the school board, a separate board would be established for the center’s day-to-day operation and to oversee a fitness center director, he said.
The June vote will help the ad hoc committee decide whether to go forward with its plans.
In other business, Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said about 120 students, most living in Milton Township or on the South Rumford Road, and three or four staff members, were unable to get to classes on Monday because of flooding. School started two hours late to allow for water to recede from most district roads.
Also on Monday, Personnel Committee member David McKivergan said screenings for the special services director and high school principal positions are scheduled to take place on Thursday. Interviews are set for the following two weeks. Action on the nominations of final candidates may take place at the board’s next meeting on April 25.
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