BY ANDY GARDNER

North Country This Week

MASSENA -- Massena Central School officials anticipate presenting a final scope of their capital project next month.

The district is considering up to about $49.5 million in upgrades in all of the district buildings.

"[The district's contractors] are continuing with their testing on the roofs, the asbestos," Brady said at Thursday’s Board of Education meeting. "We anticipate to have our final scope to the board at our September board meeting. We're pretty close."

He said after they finish up that part, the district wants to reach out to the public.

"From there we already have our BOCES PR representative working with the architect’s PR so we can roll this out to the public and start educating the community before the referendum," Brady said.

The project will have to be approved by voters in the school district. That will most likely happen in December.

Massena Central is already doing a small part of the work through a capital outlay project renovating the fuel depot that they share with the village. Brady said they are replacing its understructure and installing new tanks. The contractor has installed temporary tanks while the work is ongoing, Brady said.

And at the elementary schools, a New York Power Authority-funded replacement of interior and exterior lighting is close to finished.

"About 10 percent of the light fixtures they sent were bad, didn't work appropriately," Brady said. "They have to replace those ... so that takes a little time to get those lights back."

The exterior lights will be finished later in the fall, and any lights not installed by the time school starts will be put in after school hours, he said.