Billerica's Parker School should be replaced now

Thanks to Town Meeting representatives and the Board of Selectmen, Nov. 21 is the day the voters of Billerica have an opportunity to directly impact the future of Billerica.

[Merlin]

The Billerica School Building committee chose to pursue the highest cost option ($34 million), building a school that significantly surpasses the scope of a replacement project. There was a $22 million option that still exceeded the scope of a replacement project but, would fall within the debt limit of the Town and thus, would not require a 2 1/2 override. This option was not presented to Town Meeting or the Board of Selectman.
At least eight of the thirteen members of the Building Committee are employees of the Town and/or School, do business with the School department, or have relatives that work for the School Department. The people of Billerica did not get an unbiased and independent assessment of our needs.

The reason the $22 million option was not presented was that it could have been financed within the Town debt limit. Think about it -- with the more expensive option it ends up being free to the Town and School -- leaving the Taxpayers holding the short end of the stick.

The economy is getting worse, seniors on fixed income are not getting cost of living increases, people are losing their jobs at an alarming rate, state funding to Towns is declining -- yet, the Committee has force upon the people of Billerica a Parker School solution that is nearly twice the capacity we need and forces us into a 2 1/2 override for debt exclusion. They have put the People in a position of having to accept their expensive solution or risk losing State funding. Do you see anything wrong with this picture?
The School committee announced in Town Meeting their intention to pursue another $50 million school renovation project once the Parker School construction is completed. This would require another 2 1/2 override for an even a larger amount.

[Mike L]

Merlin,

My big gripe was for a little more money (or mabye even the same), they could have made it big enough to replace the Vining as well. Since that would eliminate at least a dozen full time positions as well as the operational costs, I think that was not in the best interest of those that leach off the town be them employees or suppliers.

If this overide was approved, I would expect them to fund the $50M to fix the rest of the neglected buildings within budget, even if it took several years to do this. No way would I vote for another overide. HOWEVER, I don't think they can build a new school AND repair all the others without any type of overide, do you?

[Billerica Resident]

Good post Merlin!!

[Merlin]

Mike L wrote:

Merlin,
My big gripe was for a little more money (or mabye even the same), they could have made it big enough to replace the Vining as well. Since that would eliminate at least a dozen full time positions as well as the operational costs, I think that was not in the best interest of those that leach off the town be them employees or suppliers.
If this overide was approved, I would expect them to fund the $50M to fix the rest of the neglected buildings within budget, even if it took several years to do this. No way would I vote for another overide. HOWEVER, I don't think they can build a new school AND repair all the others without any type of overide, do you?

Mike,

The so-called elite clique in Town set up the $2 million Cabot land purchase to have land for a new School and other municipal projects. But, as brilliant as they think they are, it turned out to have only 5 acres of usable land. The new school should have been built in another area that allowed for a single floor or no more than two floors. Now we have a three-story elementary school constructed with a few feet of an operating and in session elementary school (this is a recipe for disaster) the safety and distraction issues along are enough to make one wonder if this Committee had the best interests of the children in mind when they made their decisions. The lot of land that could have been used to build a school of the size you addressed required additional $$ to purchase and additional site prep --- both not covered by the State in the cost sharing rules. While I agree with you about the benefits of a larger school to consolidate several of the smaller elementary schools, the committee was mostly made up of School and Town employees – the resulting solution is a kludge without real long-term considerations or planning. It is just large enough to temporally help with overflow as they rebuild or renovate the other 5 elementary schools and expensive enough to not fit within our debt limit – forcing a 2 1/2 override. Win! Win! for the School and Town employees – The Taxpayers are being played for suckers!

[Growin Up]

Again.....The MSBA never "recommended" a $22M school. A $22M school, by the state's / MSBA's standards, would house 225 students. The current Parker School houses 397 students. The project would NOT qualify for reimbursement at $22M. A "larger school", designed at a plus up of 100 students, would allow the town to redistrict a bit. This would alleviate overpopulation at the other elementary schools. As for "extras", computer, language and art rooms are all standard in today's elementary schools. I suppose you could consider a computer room extra if you did not have one in elementary school. However, I believe that, and I think we should all be able to agree here, computer skills are essential in today's world....as are language skills. The gym and cafetorium are built at an acceptable scale. They'll also be available to the whole town. I hope that people vote on this issue based on fact, not based on the fear-mongering tactics being used by a select few. The 5.5% increase in taxes is completely erroneous. It'll be $50-$100 per year for 20 years and the amount will go down for each of the 20 years.

[Think about it]

The amount of untrue statements on these boards is shocking. I truly hope that the voters are reviewing true facts when making their decision on November 21st. A $22M school was never an option as it would not house the existing population at the Parker today. As someone else mentioned, purchasing additional land is non reimburseable by the state so would only cost the town even more money in the long run. Also, I agree that computer rooms, art and music rooms should not be considered "extras" - when I went to school (in the 70s) I had both a music and art room) while my children today do not have a dedicated room for either which is a shame. A one floor school does not make sense, do you realize how large that school would be and how much the cost of land for such a school would be (which is non reimburseable by the state)? This is not a taj mahal folks, it's a functioning updated school for 500 children that so desperately need it.

[Mike L]

Speaking of true facts, how about this one from the Parker School website: Looks like options 3 had plenty of land to build any size school with not extra cost:

http://newparker.billerica.k12.ma.us/files/04...

I agree unless one has an "opinion", anything that is stated as a fact should be backed up with a source that can be verified.

[Growin Up]

...and from the April 29, 2009 minutes...

J. Seeley stated that although this is a nice size lot, there are significant limitations. There are significant wetlands to one side and three smaller wetland bodies which are hydralogically
connected. Therefore, the use of this site is severely limited. There would need to be a long drive into the site, which would cross a drainage culvert, with the majority of the parking
being to one side of this culvert. A little less than 5 acres is available to build on. B. Wittenhagen noted that this property is in the Kennedy School district, which borders the Ditson. S. Infanger noted that there may be contaminated soil due to previous work done on

Like it or not, several building & site options were vetted, by the Committe and by the MSBA. ALL of this was done in open meetings. Nothing was done behind closed doors.

this site.

Mike L wrote:

Speaking of true facts, how about this one from the Parker School website: Looks like options 3 had plenty of land to build any size school with not extra cost:
http://newparker.billerica.k12.ma.us/files/04...
I agree unless one has an "opinion", anything that is stated as a fact should be backed up with a source that can be verified.

[Citizen]

Growin Up wrote:

Again.....The MSBA never "recommended" a $22M school. A $22M school, by the state's / MSBA's standards, would house 225 students. The current Parker School houses 397 students. The project would NOT qualify for reimbursement at $22M. A "larger school", designed at a plus up of 100 students, would allow the town to redistrict a bit. This would alleviate overpopulation at the other elementary schools. As for "extras", computer, language and art rooms are all standard in today's elementary schools. I suppose you could consider a computer room extra if you did not have one in elementary school. However, I believe that, and I think we should all be able to agree here, computer skills are essential in today's world....as are language skills. The gym and cafetorium are built at an acceptable scale. They'll also be available to the whole town. I hope that people vote on this issue based on fact, not based on the fear-mongering tactics being used by a select few. The 5.5% increase in taxes is completely erroneous. It'll be $50-$100 per year for 20 years and the amount will go down for each of the 20 years.

Don't forget to add the 2 1/2 percent they can go up in addition to this. This 50-100 dollars is in ADDITION to the taxes that will go up whether this passes or not.

[Doubts]

I just don't know what to think. for starters, they wasted 2 million dollars buying land they couldn't use. Embarrassing.

Then, every time I look at this [proposed school I shudder...it looks more like a prison than a school. It is mammoth...the Ditson houses 800 students and doesn't look as big as this 500 student building

[Eyes wide open]

Mike L wrote:

Speaking of true facts, how about this one from the Parker School website: Looks like options 3 had plenty of land to build any size school with not extra cost:
http://newparker.billerica.k12.ma.us/files/04...
I agree unless one has an "opinion", anything that is stated as a fact should be backed up with a source that can be verified.

I appreciate your desire to spread only facts. However, if you look at the rest of that slide (as presented to Town Meeting on 10/8/09, also available on the new parker building committee site), you'll see that the costs of Option #3 were comparable to the costs of the plan that was approved by MSBA. Therefore, pointing out this fact doesn't really do much for the case that this is a more expensive option. Granted, the Locke option doesn't have approx $400K of site demo costs so while it may be slightly less expensive, it also has a lot of other negative aspect. I'll agree that the Parker plan is not perfect as it does require construction around the existing school however, it is the BEST available alternative and I hope that the town will see this and vote yes.

[Eyes wide open]

Throughout these posts, I see mention of bias in the New Parker School project and the committee. We need to respect that the committee was tasked at finding the best alternative based on the weighing of many different criteria and goals for the schools. I believe to state that they are biased because they are town employees or school employees is unfair...who better to evaluate the educational needs of children than educators? I don't understand this argument at all We give a committee a very significant task, they provide transparency through every step along the way and then when it's decision time, we question their motivation or their decision? That is ludicrous! I work at a large company and that's the way these decisions work, a team of experts make a decision based on multiple objectives and that is what is done. To come at the 11th hour and question the process is irresponsible. If you don't want to approve the plan, then vote no although I don't think that's in the best interest of the children or citizen's of Billerica.

[Mike L]

There is no question a new Parker School is in the best interests of the children. That was the bias in the process. Many of the voting citizens appear to have different opinions, needs, and priorities that were not represented in the final presentation.

Voting is the ultimate input.

[Mike L]

I will be a devil's advocate here: What if we needed a new firestation and we tasked the firefighters to come up with the best, most modern, state of the art firestation with the help of firestation architects. The project passed all committees and it is now up to the voters to approve a debt exclusion for the construction.

How many would vote for it knowing how the process was managed?

[Think about it]

Mike L wrote:

I will be a devil's advocate here: What if we needed a new firestation and we tasked the firefighters to come up with the best, most modern, state of the art firestation with the help of firestation architects. The project passed all committees and it is now up to the voters to approve a debt exclusion for the construction.
How many would vote for it knowing how the process was managed?

Fair question, Mike, however the New Parker School committee is not made up 100% by educators. The list of members is below. I don't know many of them personally but assume that they were not school related when appointed . I would imagine that over the 2+ years involved in this, they may have become "biased" but anyone with an opinion is biased if you think about it.
Robert Accomando (Selectman)
Vincent Amato (Moderator Vining appointee)
Frank Antonelli (School Department)
Marie Blanchette (School Committee)
Bob Casey (Planning Board)
David Creesy (School Department)
John Gray (Moderator appointee)
Alexander Infanger (Chair)(Moderator appointee)
Mike Kinney (Building inspector)
Kathy Paulson (Finance Committee)
Anthony Serio (Superintendent of Schools)
Celine Swinford (Moderator appointee)
Barbara Wittenhagen (Parker School Principal)

[Voter]

Merlin wrote:

The Billerica School Building committee chose to pursue the highest cost option ($34 million), building a school that significantly surpasses the scope of a replacement project. There was a $22 million option that still exceeded the scope of a replacement project but, would fall within the debt limit of the Town and thus, would not require a 2 1/2 override. This option was not presented to Town Meeting or the Board of Selectman.
At least eight of the thirteen members of the Building Committee are employees of the Town and/or School, do business with the School department, or have relatives that work for the School Department. The people of Billerica did not get an unbiased and independent assessment of our needs.
The reason the $22 million option was not presented was that it could have been financed within the Town debt limit. Think about it -- with the more expensive option it ends up being free to the Town and School -- leaving the Taxpayers holding the short end of the stick.
The economy is getting worse, seniors on fixed income are not getting cost of living increases, people are losing their jobs at an alarming rate, state funding to Towns is declining -- yet, the Committee has force upon the people of Billerica a Parker School solution that is nearly twice the capacity we need and forces us into a 2 1/2 override for debt exclusion. They have put the People in a position of having to accept their expensive solution or risk losing State funding. Do you see anything wrong with this picture?
The School committee announced in Town Meeting their intention to pursue another $50 million school renovation project once the Parker School construction is completed. This would require another 2 1/2 override for an even a larger amount.

Again... where is the proof to your statements. I went through the committee meeting minutes and no where is your statements even mentioned. If you are against the school, please do so with facts no inaccurate information.

[Voter]

Mike L wrote:

I will be a devil's advocate here: What if we needed a new firestation and we tasked the firefighters to come up with the best, most modern, state of the art firestation with the help of firestation architects. The project passed all committees and it is now up to the voters to approve a debt exclusion for the construction.
How many would vote for it knowing how the process was managed?

Very true, but would the new fire station be getting state money for more than half and have to follow the state's process. In the case of the parker school, the MSBA decided the process. If you search internet for the MSBA and what other cities/towns are doing for new schools, you will see Billerica is following same process and rules.

[Bottom Line]

Vote no on the debt exclusion.
We pay too much in taxes as it is.

[Voter]

Bottom Line wrote:

Vote no on the debt exclusion.
We pay too much in taxes as it is.

This is democracy and that is your choice. Yes taxes are high, but voting NO will send the state money ($17M of your tax money) to another town for their new school.

[Billerica Resident]

Citizen wrote:

<quoted text>
Don't forget to add the 2 1/2 percent they can go up in addition to this. This 50-100 dollars is in ADDITION to the taxes that will go up whether this passes or not.

I am so shocked at some people. Yes, Taxes go up. Amazing! We get great services in this town and pay a fraction of the taxes that towns Abuting us pay so lets all stop acting like we are getting reemed with Billerica taxes because we are not!