Some Concerned With Architect Selection, Others Not

Some Ellington residents have recently expressed concern over the choosing of Silver-Petrucelli as the architect for the and projects, but Permanent Building Committee Chairman Peter Welti isn’t one of them.

“We have a school to build, we have an architect, we’re going to find a construction manager, and we’re going to build a school,” he said.

The firm has recently had a rough go of a school project in Berlin, but Welti said that this has only recently come to light and had no bearing on the PBC’s recommendation to go with Moser Pilon Nelson instead of Silver-Petrucelli. According to Welti, Berlin was not one of the places the committee talked to and noted that Berlin probably wouldn’t have known until recently that there was a problem.

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He said it also has no bearing on how he will think about the projects in Ellington.

“I don’t know enough about it,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening. There could be people six months from now that hear about everything that happened in Ellington over the past month and think things about the Permanent Building Commitee or me, or whatever, and they’re hearing it second, third and fourth hand so they really don’t know what’s happening. I have no idea what’s happening in Berlin so I won’t let it skew my thinking.”

He noted that there are many different places where the issues could be coming from with the Berlin project.

Welti also knows that nobody is always perfect.

“No doubt in my mind you find any professional firm, you find any contractor, you find any town, you find any board, there’s going to be something that doesn’t go quite right,” he said. “Maybe that’s happening in Berlin, but I have no idea what’s truly happening with them.”

The only thing on Welti’s mind is building a great school, not going back and forth about what has happened. He says that Crystal Lake is a great school and he wants to make it better.

The PBC will be in charge of these projects for the next few years, so the job is to go build the best schools it can for a value, for the dollars, for the taxpayers.

“Let’s go work it out with Silver and go build the school,” he said. “That’s my mentality. Let’s go build the school. Let’s get an architect, which we’ve got, let’s get our team on board, let’s go meet with them Thursday, have a good meeting, and move forward. I’m going to forget all the rest.”