By James Lomuscio
Westport’s Board of Finance tonight voted unanimously to approve $31,972,235 with bond and note authorization to restore the mold plagued and shuttered Coleytown Middle School (CMS) back into a sixth through eighth grade facility.
Don O’Day: “I hope this will be the beginning of a healing process.” (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
“It’s been a long, long 11 months,” said Don O’Day, chairman do the CMS Building Committee. “I hope this will be the beginning of a healing process.”
The amount, the largest appropriation the town has witnessed in the past 15 years, includes a 15% contingency of $4.5 million.
“If we don’t need the dollars, we won’t spend them,” said O’Day, a former Board of Education chairman. “We will treat every dollar like our own, and we’re going to oversee the work at Coleytown Middle School like it’s our own because it’s our kids.”
Gary Conrad, town finance director, said the town would go out to bond for the appropriation request for 20 years at an interest rate of 2.6% with a $41 million payout over its term.
The annual payout would be $2.065 million after the first two years, about 1% of the total town operating budget.
Though the restoration project can seek state reimbursement, Brian Stern, finance board chairman, said that it would be only between $2 million and $5 million, not the usual 20% due to exemptions.
“With your approval and the approval of the RTM next Tuesday, we will fully replace the roof, install a new HVAC system, clad the exterior wall, replace every window, regrade exterior to draw away water … improve security of front entrance,” O’Day said.
There was a full house for tonight’s Board of Finance meeting. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com
“I have the utmost confidence you will live up to our expectations,” said Michael Rea, Board of Finance vice chairman.
What seemed like a slam dunk, however, took circuitous turns when finance board member Lee Caney grilled Mark Mathias, school board chairman, as to why as to why his board did not affirmatively vote at its Friday meeting that the restored school vote to remain a sixth through eighth grade middle school and not a sixth grade academy.
The latter idea had been floated throughout the year as one of the solutions to address demographic changes.
“The building itself will be essentially the same,” Mathias said.
Caney and others said, that if, for example, the building were to be used as a sixth grade academy, the appropriation might be different, $10 million less.
“We would be obligated to do due diligence,” said board member James Westphal.
Rea, too, had second thoughts.
“We have to know why; we need to be able to measure it to do our due diligence,” Rea said. “You cake is half-baked.”
To that end, Rea called for an amendment to the action item adding that the restored building be used as a sixth through eighth grade middle school.
“This is a question of clarifying and being fair with the public,” Rea said. “The best thing we can do for the taxpayer is to be clear and be fair
Westphal seconded it.
Board member Sheri Gordon, however, argued that the Board of Finance would be overstepping its role to tell the school board how to use the building. She suggested that the Board of Education call an emergency meeting Tuesday and return to the finance board Wednesday.
Others disagreed. Stern said the town attorney had told him the Board of Finance would be within its right. Caney sided with Gordon, and when it came time for Rea’s amendment, it passed 5 to 2 with Gordon and Caney dissenting.
Following that vote, and with the acknowledgment that a solution was needed, the full board voted in favor of the appropriation.
Prior to the vote, Mark Friedman, a member of the Representative Town Meeting’s (RTM) Education Committee, said that many on the town’s legislative body were in favor of the appropriation, and he urged the finance board to approve it.
“The town is in a crisis, and we have a solution in front of us,” Friedman said. “A delay is harmful to the children.”
