District officials plan to ask voters to support a property tax in the May 2022 election to fund the construction of a new elementary school on the same property as the middle and senior high school.

District officials have not decided how much money they will ask taxpayers for, although Superintendent Carl Seiter previously told The News the property tax could generate $14.1 million.

The board heard presentations last week from Integrity Construction Services President Ed Hunt and representatives of Wolgast Corporation in Alpena.

Several board members said they came into the meeting thinking they would select Wolgast as the district’s construction management firm, however, the board unanimously voted to move forward with Clark Construction Company.

News Photo by Crystal Nelson Craig Froggett, business development manager with Clark Construction Company, speaks to the Hillman Board of Education on Monday.

Trustee Roxanne LaFleche said she thought representatives of Clark Construction Company were more personable. Trustee Luke Sitton said Clark Construction Company’s representatives seemed more sincere and he felt they could deliver on their promises.

Board President Kelly Burwell said all three of the firms expected to start the work and complete the work during the same timeframe. She did note that Clark Construction Company was cheaper than Wolgast Corp.

Clark Construction Company would charge the district between 5.8% to 6.9% of the elementary school’s construction costs, whereas Wolgast Company would charge 2.5% of the cost of the project for professional services and 4.5% to 5% for staffing.

Board members also asked Superintendent Seiter about his opinion on the construction management firm.

“I think both Wolgast and Clark are geared towards the K-12 market,” Seiter said. “Both of them would do a really good job. It really comes down to who you trust to work for you.They are our watchdog during the construction process.”

Senior Vice President Robert LaLonde said their primary focus is to get the bond passed, but that they also plan to deliver the project promised to the voters and to provide “construction excellence.

Vice President Gary Stellar said if the bond passes in May of 2022, it would take about 10 to 11 months to design the building. Construction would begin in June of 2023, he said.

LaLonde also said they also understand the project has an image.

LaLonde said people will ask how the new school is going and that they don’t want to end up in the news or have any bad press about something that went wrong.

“When we build this project in the community, we want everyone that’s voted for this to be proud of the project when they drive by it,” he said. “We want it to be clean, we want it to be neat, we want people to know it’s being built in a quality fashion.”