FREEPORT

The Freeport High School Building Advisory Committee agreed Wednesday on changing the design of the school renovation project to preserve a tree planted 25 years ago in memory of a student.

Craig Richard was killed when he was hit by a car on Wardtown Road while riding his bike on June 22, 1990. He was 15. The following autumn, Richard’s class held a memorial service and planted a Norway maple in front of the school, said Jennifer Downs, Richard’s mother.

The tree’s significance only recently came to the building advisory committee’s attention, which was looking at plans for a safer drop-off area in front of the school to get more vehicles off Holbrook Street. That initial plan would have required the tree to be cut down or moved, and the later option would have cost $24,000 with no guarantee that the tree would survive.

The alternate plan supported by the committee Wednesday keeps the tree in place and extends the dropoff another 10 feet. The new plan would provide the same number of parking spaces for short-term parallel parking.

Lyndon Keck of PDT Architects, hired by Regional School Unit 5 as the architect for the $14 million renovation project, said the alternative plan may cost an additional $11,500 for additional ledge borings and removal, as well as more survey and engineering work. The contingency fund built into the project budget should cover that cost, he said.

Keck said two arborists examined the maple and found it has lower trunk damage and canker disease. The tree has a stress fracture and “girlding” roots running in a circle.

However, Downs told the committee Wednesday that cutting down the tree would be like killing her son again. A new tree, she said, “would not be the same at all.”

“This is his tree,” said Downs.

Erik Brobst will be a senior at Freeport High School this fall.

“I’d prefer if maybe we found a way to build around it,” he said, adding that the area around the tree is one of the most beautiful spots on the campus, and that the tree has a lot of emotional resonance with students.

After the meeting, Downs said she appreciates the work the architect has done to try to save the tree.

Also on Wednesday, the building committee discussed how the construction schedule applies to fundraising for a turf field and track.

Local resident Kathleen Meade expressed her frustration at the “total arrogance” of the renovation committee and field and turf committee, because voters rejected field projects as part of the renovation.

Meade warned about environmental issues caused by the track and field.

“It better not be a done deal, because you have a lot of people … who are totally against these fields at all, causing hot spots, pollution,” Meade said.

Keck said the building committee “is not running the notion of doing private fundraising to get a field, so I think it’s inappropriate to accuse this committee of arrogance.”

He noted there are private citizens very interested in doing this work.

David Watts, a Freeport High School teacher serving on the building advisory committee, defended the committee while noting that the oversight on the memorial tree was an honest mistake.

“I think we really need to work as a community,” Watts said. “There’s nobody on this committee that’s trying to do anything of any arrogance or slipping anything by. It’s very, very hurtful, when all we need to do is just talk and find out what people’s concerns are.”

The renovation project still needs approval from Freeport’s project review board, which was scheduled to discuss the renovation plans Wednesday night, but not scheduled to make a decision. The renovation involves a second-story addition and renovation of the 1961 classrooms. Work should be completed by fall of 2017.

The project

THE RENOVATION project still needs approval from Freeport’s project review board, which was scheduled to discuss the renovation plans Wednesday night, but not scheduled to make a decision. The renovation involves a second-story addition and renovation of the 1961 classrooms.