Council backs Scalia site for new school

Though city Councilor Mike Rimcoski said the move reminded him of "thieves in the night" sneaking through the back door, a majority of the council tonight backed the placement of a new K-8 school on the Scalia site off Barlow Street.
With the addition of Councilor Craig Minor, the council was able to muster a 4-3 vote to favor the site this time around. Just last Thursday, the council turned down the location.
More details to come.

9:25 p.m. update:
Just days after rejecting the Scalia sand pit site for a new school, the City Council reversed itself Tuesday.
Councilor Craig Minor, who joined the majority in a 4-3 vote against the site last week, said Tuesday that he changed his mind over the weekend in order to allow the controversial project to move forward.
Minor said that his own site preference, at the former grocery store site on Divinity Street, couldn’t attract enough votes. As a result, he said, he agreed to back his second choice for the 900-student, kindergarten to eighth grade school.
“It took a lot of courage” for Minor to switch sides, said Councilor Ken Cockayne, a member of the West Bristol School Building Committee that twice proposed building te new school on the Scalia “A” site.
But city Councilor Mike Rimcoski, who opposed the site, said the last-minute change “makes the entire council look like they’re thieves in the night.”
He said that unexpectedly bringing the issue up for a vote again is “the best way to sneak in the back door” with the public caught unawares.
Mayor Art Ward said the vote should have been delayed so that taxpayers would have the chance to address the council before a decision was made.
“I don’t see the urgency,” said Ward, who joined Rimcoski and Councilor Frank Nicastro in opposing the choice.
With the Scalia site now approved, the city plans next to open negotiations with the owners of the Scalia site and the former Crowley dealership next door to Greene-Hills School, which the council targeted last fall for a new school.
The Board of Educations has long-term plans to open two new K-8 schools and to close four older buildings: Memorial Boulevard Middle School and three elementary schools – O’Connell, Greene-Hills and Bingham.
Education officials want both new schools to open at the same time in order to ease the redistricting hassles and prevent logistical complications that might push up costs on the $115 million plan.
Nicastro said that “people have the right to change their mind” and he appreciates Minor’s concerns, but there is no rush to make a decision.
Nicastro said he doesn’t want to plunge ahead without some idea how much the Scalia site might cost taxpayers.
But the Real Estate Committee, which Nicastro chairs, may have a crucial role to play on the issue because it has the responsibility under the cty charter to review the negotiated deals with Crowley and Scalia. It has the capacity to vote down the deals or simply sit on them.
The city attorney, Edward Krawiecki, Jr, said the council could take up the sales anyway as long as a majority of councilors want to bring it up.
Councilor Kevin McCauley said that if the Scalia site hadn’t won approval, there is “a strong possibility” that both school sites would have fallen through.
He commended Minor for making “the right move.”
Another supporter of the site, Councilor Cliff Block, said that the issue presented “a hard decision” for Minor. He commended his colleague for changing sides, adding that Minor “was not pressured” to do it.
Minor said he didn’t see any reason to delay the decision.He said the issue has been on the table for a year and people have had many chances to speak about it.
Minor said that more delay would put “undue financial and emotional pressure” on property owners near the Divinity and Park streets site that had been eyed. He said it was important to clear away that uncertainty, as a number of residents there had requested.

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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com