Agenda - 04-25-2006-1 - Laserfiche WebLink

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• When we buy a site, Mr. Burriss said, we solicit partners who can bring money to the table. The county and municipalities should be doing their own long range capital planning, so they know what their needs are. Then, when we meet in the context of a particular site, we can identify all of the needs and tap each other's resources for the community's benefit. • In response to a question from Mr. Link, Mr. Burriss said that municipalities really did contribute financial resources to the partnership. He gave the example of Cary in the context of Middle Creek campus ( "a great collaboration "), adding that the property was divided after the district had completed a master plan for the site. • Mr. Burriss noted one joint use mistake from his experience in Wake County: in one instance there was not a sufficient "firewall" between a community center and a school that had been co- located. Good security is needed between a school building and another community facility so that people cannot move easily from the community facility into the school. • In response to a question from Dr. Pedersen, Ms. Sharma gave a brief overview of some considerations for environmentally friendly school design and construction. She is a member of the US Green Building Council. WCPSS decided not to pursue LEED certification, in part because the district's practices are ahead of those standards and in part because the certification process is time consuming and expensive. "The goal is not certification," she said, "the goal is good design." WCPSS pursues "high performance design" for its schools and this gets the district to its environmental goals. And we don't make significant changes until after we have consulted with our maintenance people. • "We challenge our designers to be sensible," she said. For example: • The district uses a creative approach to windows to achieve day lighting without having to install day lighting monitors. • With a "whole building approach," the district coordinates what it needs from its mechanical systems while the same time improving the school building envelope. • The district was managing its storm water appropriately even before this was a mandate. We've been saving in operating costs because we would have had to pay for the nitrogen in our runoff. • We use common sense design to avoid heat generated from our parking lots. • We use drought resistant plants (which had to be pursued in tandem with community education so that people would understand the different aesthetic). • We've saved about 40,000 gallons of water a year from using waterless urinals. These fixtures also are easier to clean than conventional ones. They are fiberglass instead of porcelain. All of our high schools and middle schools have been retrofitted with waterless urinals, and all future schools will have them installed. • We've installed carbon monoxide monitors in the schools, and use low VOC paints. None of this is adding costs. • We've brought the construction industry along with us, and find they are just as interested in minimizing construction waste as we are in reducing waste and costs.