City councilors postponed making any decisions on two proposed new 900-student schools until they can hear directly from the special committee that recommended sites for the new buildings.
Because the decisions “are items of the utmost importance,” said city Councilor Art Ward, officials want to hear from those directly responsible for choosing the proposed locations.
Both the West Bristol and the Forestville school building committees are expected to make presentations to the council at its Oct. 9 meeting at City Hall.
“I want to know what their discovery process was,” said city Councilor Craig Minor. “How did they arrive at that conclusion?”
The Forestville panel recommended putting a new kindergarten to eighth grade school on the former Crowley dealership next door to Greene-Hills School, a site that isn’t particularly controversial.
But the West Bristol committee, faced with a wider array of choices, backed the idea of putting a new school at the Scalia “A” sand pit off Barlow Street, a plan that’s already drawn heat from the city’s zoning chairman and top fiscal overseers.
Minor said he recognizes that “no site is perfect” and that whatever is chosen will have flaws.
But, he said, he would like to hear about the drawbacks of each of the sites considered so he can weigh them himself.
Ward, who favors putting one of the new schools on the former Roberts property on Chippens Hill, said “there’s a lot of questions” that need to be answered before councilors will move ahead on the sites for the $115 million school project pushed by the Board of Education.
Ward said all the sites need to be examined in depth and every possible question answered about each of them so that nothing unexpected will come up years down the road.
Minor said he was surprised that the school building committee members skipped the special council meeting Thursday. He said he anticipated they would be present.
Minor said that in addition to hearing from the panel members, he is also interested in finding out what City Planner Alan Weiner has to say about potential school sites.
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Copyright 2007. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
10 comments:
I'm sure I'll get lambasted for this idea, but I think that they should consider turning 17 acres of Rockwell Park into a school. I'm sure the Rockwell's would like that. It would eliminate the use of eminent domain in the west end and would still leave plenty of property for the actual park.
I hope the person in the previous post was being sarcastic.
Park and Divinity is the best solution and solves blight, houses on top of each other, gives a shot in the arm to the area, and these people will get more money through eminent domain than they would on the open market. its too bad no one has the backbone to do the right thing.
It doesn't take backbone to force people to sell their homes. It requires no morals at all.
It's just plain wrong.
Since when is it a "done deal" to build new mega sized schools and to acquire the new land to do it.
Will the public ever have a chance to vote on this?
Probably not, not from this crowd of politicians - more flip-flops and sweet sauce being spread than than a gourmet chef making crepes.
The people of Bristol do not have any rights when it comes to what they are able to pay for, or to the schooling environment of their babies.
Where are the proposals for small sized walkable neigborhood schools?
Show us the cost comparisons and feasiblity studies for the rehab and minor expansions (to keep the schools small and in the immediate neigbborhoods) for the older buildings?
Or a proposal to create a small new sized walkable school in a neighborhood?
Didn't the only public meeting on this issue, have any impact on these politicans?
How loud long, and how loud in a public meeting do the people have to chant, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!
The Energizer Pink Bunny Rabbits are beating their drums for expensive mega schools all over Bristol.
However, they cannot prove the academic advantages of mega sized K-8's.
The parents,teachers,and residents have no drums or bunnies.
We just keep paying, and paying, and paying, and paying.......
Maybe this committee needs to go back to school - the Scalia Pit is just that A PIT!
Maybe the city could use the part of Rockwell Park that Frank Scalia stole for his own greedy profit about 10 years ago. Wonder where that went?
Didn't Scalia ruin the water well at Rockwell with contamination and cause the city to shut it down permanently?
You should be lambasted for suggesting to use Rockwell Park for a school. We need all of the open land/parks we can get for the children they are wont to put into classes with 900 others so that they can have numbers instead of names. Mrs Rockwell did not want a school - she wanted a park and left land and money for THAT purpose. Your suggestion rivals that of eminent domain. It takes a park away from us all.
When the people of Park and Divinity St are offered "more money through eminent domain" it will STILL be too little to buy a home that they can afford right now. This IS what they can afford to buy, pay taxes on, maintain, etc. Instead of ripping others' homes down, why not step up and allocate money to help them clean it up? After all, it IS in the Enterprise zone and yet no one seems to let them know that so they can get some help with the roof, facade, maintainance. 10:44 am said it well, "It doesn't take backbone. It requires no morals at all. It's just plain wrong."
Frank Scalia is gone. His daughters only want the best and it might be worth the time to find out what they might be willing to toss into the deal in return for that land. The water well was so awesome for people everywhere, those of us who remember it. There is no apologizing or deal to get it back. The Scalia pit is not the best place because of the traffic and dangers. The railroad ties would have to be removed. Still, don't bring the evils of the father down on the daughters. They've had a big job carrying on after the deceit and embezzlement.
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