FILE
In fact, Mayor Mark Lauretti told members of the Shelton High School Fire Rehabilitation Committee Thursday (Aug. 29), it may be three to five years before the code violations are fixed.
Lauretti said that at a “productive” meeting last month at the state fire marshal’s office attended by himself, Fire Marshal James Tortora, Building Official Joseph Ballaro, and Emergency Management Director Michael Maglione, state officials said the city could resolve most of the remaining fire code issues at the school by installing sprinklers throughout the building.
“When you sprinkle the building, all of these things go away,” Lauretti said.
The code violations have been a constant and embarrassing problem for the city since 2008, when a fire started in the school.
A 118-page report released by the state in April documented 579 fire code violations at the building.
The city has been in the process of fixing the mountain of violations for years, and will be for some time to come due to the scope of the remaining work, the mayor said Thursday.
“This is not going to be a year or two-year project,” Lauretti said. “This will have to be done when it’s least disruptive to the operation of the building, obviously, and it’ll be over maybe three, four, five years.”
To that end, Aldermen on Wednesday (Sept. 4) appointed a new committee, the “Shelton High School Code Compliance Building Committee,” to oversee the new work.
The members of the committee are Joseph Ballaro, the city’s building official, Al Cameron, the finance director for the school system, Fire Marshal James Tortora, and residents John Fitzgerald and Donald Sheehy.
Also Wednesday, Aldermen appointed Stratford Fire Marshal Brian Lampart, a Shelton resident, to the High School Fire Rehabilitation Committee.
Lampart spoke to Aldermen in June, wondering why the fire code fixes were taking so long.
Superintendent Freeman Burr said Aug. 29 it’s critical to fix the fire code problems on the building’s fourth floor, where the most complicated issues remain, “within this year,” as well as a maintenance area on the school’s second floor and a wood shop on the third floor.
Plans to install sprinklers in the latter two areas have already been drawn up, Ballaro said.
“With any kind of luck, by January we’ll have those three areas done,” Burr said. “I think we have to set a target to do that.”
Burr said Beth Smith, the school’s headmaster, has to file a report by Oct. 15 with the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), which accredits the school, showing a plan of action to address the fire code problems.
NEASC cited the problems when it renewed the school’s accreditation in 2011, mandating progress reports on what the city is doing to fix them.
To be determined — how much all of the work will ultimately cost.
The Board of Aldermen have allocated $162,000 for fire code fixes at the school since last year.
Photo: Ethan Fry Mayor Mark Lauretti, Shelton High School Headmaster Beth Smith, and Board of Aldermen President John Anglace Aug. 29.
“There’s a lot of spadework that needs to be done before you start talking about money,” he said.
The mayor said the cost would be reduced by the fact that pipes to supply water to the sprinklers already exist in the building — a fact city officials realized only last month, when it was pointed out by state officials at their meeting to discuss possible code fixes.
Lauretti said the money already allocated by Aldermen will allow the work to “get in motion,” and more could be added later, either via a referendum or by a line item in the budget.
“I don’t like to put numbers out there because now you tell all your bidders how much you have to spend, and that’s what the bid numbers come in at,” Lauretti said.
State Review
Jeffrey Beckham, a spokesman for the state fire marshal’s office, said Thursday that though the state spent years investigating, and then producing, the voluminous report on the fire code violations, their role has been advisory.
“We’re not dictating what has to happen there,” Beckham said. “Our staff has been providing advice.”
During Thursday’s meeting, Ballaro said representatives of the state fire marshal’s office had been at the high school the week before, but Beckham said he didn’t have “any information about a visit last week.”
“Obviously we’ve gotten involved there because there was a request at the local level to get involved because of concerns,” Beckham said, referring to a complaint filed by an assistant fire marshal in January 2011.
“We’re monitoring the situation,” Beckham said. “I’m sure we’ll continue to monitor the situation until it’s resolved.”
Beckham also said a review of Tortora’s certification brought about by the January 2011 complaint and subsequent investigation is “still pending,” but won’t proceed until the now-vacant position of state fire marshal is filled.
Meanwhile, a lawsuit filed by Tortora last year saying several city fire commissioners and an alderman perpetrated a campaign of defamation to get him fired was dismissed last month over a procedural issue.
Tortora filed the lawsuit last June. On Aug. 23, 2013, Judge Paul Matasavage granted a motion to dismiss in the case because court documents connected to the lawsuit were not filed on time.
Beckham said the state’s involvement in the Shelton High School fire code fixes would be minimal unless there is a “complete lapse or failure at a local level. We don’t have any indication that that’s the case.
“It’s primarily a local enforcement issue and a local issue to fix,” he said. “We trust and believe that’s what they’re doing.”
Audio from the Aug. 29 meeting is posted below.
