LOWELL — If there’s a fire in the kitchens of the Pawtucketville Memorial or Shaughnessy elementary schools, don’t reach for a fire extinguisher to put out the blaze: they’ve expired.
Senior Sanitary Code Enforcement Inspector Matt Sheehan told members of the Board of Health during its Wednesday night meeting that the two schools have been in failed status since last October. The Morey and McAvinnue elementary schools replaced their expired fire extinguishers before the board met.
“I was told by staff that the fire extinguishers would be replaced this week,” Sheehan said.
Board member Alison Keegan expressed both indignation and alarm that vital school safety components were still an issue in the schools nearly nine months after the initial failed inspection. Fire extinguisher inspections are good for one year.
“They’ve known that these were expired since October,” she said. “I don’t understand why this has to be so complicated.”
The board discussed the issue at length during its October 2024 meeting, which was attended by School Operations and Maintenance Director Rick Underwood.
At that time, Underwood said that the school district contracts with a firm called Impact Fire to conduct all of the district’s yearly inspections
“We rely on our senior custodians to report to us that they’ve been completed and done,” he said. “We have hundreds of fire extinguishers throughout the building, not just the kitchens. We’ll start making that a priority of the senior custodians to check all those fire extinguishers and check the tags.”
Sheehan told the board Wednesday that if his department found expired fire extinguishers in a commercial business, “Me and my team would come down pretty heavy on them.”
The scope of the BOH is oversight, direction and inspection, not management. Sheehan’s Division of Development Services, under the Department of Planning and Development, conducts health code inspections on the city’s food establishments and schools and reports those findings to the city’s Board of Health, which reports to the Health & Human Services Department.
To further complicate chain-of-authority issues, though the school district uses the buildings, almost all are owned by the city. The district is responsible for custodial services, like cleaning and ground maintenance, while the city is responsible for repairs.
The district has struggled to maintain its aging portfolio of more than 3 million square feet of school space that run the gamut of problems from rodent infestations and pervasive mold issues to leaky roofs and wonky heating and cooling systems. The buildings are used by nearly 15,000 students and almost 2,000 staff members.
Underwood told Chair Jo-Ann Keegan in October that oversight was not only fragmented between different city departments, but even among private contractors like Banner Pest Control; Aramark, the district’s food service company; and Impact Fire, which services all the fire extinguishers in the school’s kitchens.
Alison Keegan’s motion to have both Underwood and representatives from Impact Fire appear before the board at its next meeting unanimously passed.
The upcoming City Council meeting on Tuesday will attempt to address the crisscrossing lines of authority and responsibility, during the first reading of the city’s 2026 budget.
City Manager Tom Golden will ask the council to vote to amend Chapter 20 of the Code of Ordinances in order to create a new division within the Department of Public Works.
“One of the Council’s priorities has been trying to increase the city’s ability to maintain our public buildings,” Golden’s memo to the body said. “By creating this new facilities department, the city can have one specific department devoted to improving and enhancing these assets.”
Northwood Rehabilitation & Health Care Center, in the city’s Pawtucketville neighborhood, was also on the BOH agenda for a failed inspection. The care center offers short-term rehabilitation, long-term, respite and hospice care with 123 certified beds.
The Varnum Avenue facility is owned by Athena Health Care Systems, a for-profit Connecticut-based management group established in 1984. It provides health care services at 30 locations in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
The facility failed its first inspection in February. A follow-up inspection in mid-March noted that the ANSUL system — a brand-name component that describes kitchen hood fire-suppression systems — was still not operational. There also was no ability to wash linens of all types from March 21 through March 25, due to a sewage backup and line blockage.
The care center finally passed its sanitary code inspection, put a pest control plan in place and paid a total of $1,000 in fines. But the facility’s ANSUL system remains noncompliant.
“The ANSUL system is still out of date, therefore they failed the inspection,” Sheehan said. “They have one week to get the system up to date or they will receive a fine of $1,000 per day.”
Neither Director of Marketing and Communications Shaina Grace nor Tony Black, a communications and recruitment specialist with Athena Health Care Systems, responded to a request for comment.
“We will be going out there every few months to make sure everything is on the up and up,” Sheehan said.
The Board of Health meets the first Wednesday of every month, at 6 p.m. in the Mayor’s Reception Room on the second floor of City Hall.