I'll have more on this later today -- after I get a copy of the report on the Matthews Street site -- but the bottom line is that the Planning Commission has slated a special meeting at 6 p.m. Monday to decide whether to recommend the locale for a school.
In a way, it doesn't matter what the planners say, because five of the seven City Council votes are pretty well set in favor of it, enough to override a planning objection.
But it would still mean something if the panel objected to the spot.
Note: This entry originally had the meeting time as 6:30 Monday. It is actually at 6 p.m.
Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.
Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
6 comments:
Allan, Bill, John, Brian, Marie & Co.:
The Matthews Street site goes against all that your astute plan for Bristol envisions. It encourages sprawl, and the further demise of the central and downtown areas. Busing kids from Federal Hill (for example) and other central areas to the outskirts of Bristol (more specifically the Bristol city line) is wrong-headed and perhaps dangerous.
Saving a few thousand dollars an acre does not warrant such a bad move. VOTE NO on this purchase!
YES,
New schools at the edges of the city, removed from centers of community being served means SPRAWL.
Failure to rehabilitate existing public structures at a lesser cost means excessive consumption of resources, and lacks fiscal conservatism.
Failure to plan for the reuse of existing public building means
means major disinvestment in existing communities and urban decay.
All of the above is a potent stimulus for the exodus of the remaining middle class from the older urban areas.
What a disconnect exists in the thinking of our leaders. On one hand a "West End Study" is underway to improve the conditions of that area of the city; however, on the other hand the council supports the removal of the essential element of a community, THE major neigborhood anchor - the school.
Families, children, and schools are what makes and sustains a community or neighborhood. Properly sited, schools contribute well-balanced city both economically and socially.
If one doesn't support families of specific area of the city by providing them with a conveniently accessible well-maintained school of approppriate size, one encourages those families to leave for a better environment elsewhere. New home buyers will be discouraged for the same reason.
Are not children part of a community?
Why have a Childrens' Museum in the West End on one hand; however, on the other hand remove the very children who would use it?
Why dump millions into a public library, then remove the very children who would use it?
Where's the synergy of educational resources?
Paint all the fascades, gussy up the commercial property, dump more tax-cuts and grants on these abandoned areas. It really won't matter.
No amount of ball fields or subsurface infrastructure at the new school site, on the distant edge of community, will entice the middle and working class families to stay in the abandoned areas.
This city encourages SPRAWL; encourages transient residents for its older neighborhoods; impoverishes it's own lonstanding residents by failing to support existing schools in local neighborhoods;
encourages in their planning practices the development of ghettos of disadvantage.
Where and Who are our anti-sprawl leaders?
11:34
I just nominated you!
Now take charge!
From 11:34 to 3:00 pm
An average citizen who has no position and no power cannot "take charge", but only remind others of what they know already.
11:34
Why not get off your duff and organize those people that think like you.
There is strength in numbers.
Of course, it will take time and effort, but many other opeople are doing that: why not you?
With all due respect, 3:00
For heavens sake, at least write an piece of "Collins-blog" explaining your reasons for disliking the proposed school project.
I know of no "others" in this town that would even meet over a single cup of coffee to discuss the issue of SPRAWL.
You ask, "Please organize?"
OK.
First step, please WRITE.
11:34
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