By James Lomuscio
Members of Westport’s Representative Town Meeting (RTM) got hot under the collar tonight during a debate over funds for installation of air conditioning at Coleytown Elementary School (CES).
RTM Member Meliissa Kane questions Board of Education Chairman Michael Gordon at tonight’s meeting. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Photo from Westport Town Television
After slightly more than two hours of contentious debate and a public flogging of the Board of Education, members approved by a 30 to 2 with 2 abstentions vote a $216,000 school board request to install air conditioning at the school this spring.
The request, reduced from the Board of Finance approved $290,000 due to lower bids, was for a long sought HVAC air conditioning system in the CES gymnatorium and cafeteria. Opened in 1953, CES is the only Westport elementary school among five without such air conditioning.
Tonight parents and others told stories of children becoming overheated, exhausted, passing out and getting injured.
While all RTM members said they wanted the children to have air conditioning, the discussion became heated when others, following the lead of RTM member Allen Bomes, argued that the money should come out of the school board’s carryover and surplus accounts, not the town’s general fund.
Bomes made a motion for an amendment to that effect, which eventually failed by a vote of 25 to 8 with 1 abstention.
“The funds should have come from the carryover account from this year’s (operating) budget,” Bomes said.
School board chairman Michael Gordon countered that this was a large capital project that should go before a town body and not come from the schools’ operating budget.
Schools Superintendent Elliot Landon said that this year’s budget surplus is being used in part to reduce the schools’ 2016-17 operating budget.
“This gives us the opportunity to have the Board of Education use it for any exigency,” Landon said.
Parents, meanwhile, urged the RTM to approve the funds, saying the unsafe, unhealthy situation at CES had gone on for too long.
“A no vote would assure that the project will not happen,” said Christine Kurpiel, CES PTA co-president.
“This really is Groundhog Day,” said Coleytown parent Liz Moriarty. “You have the opportunity to take care of this now.”
An RTM denial, she said, “could send us back to square one.”
At first, the allocation request seemed to be going smoothly with unanimous support from the RTM’s Education, Finance and Public Works committees.
But after resident Don Bergmann’s suggestion that the school system take the money from its carryover account, not to mention Bomes’ proposed amendment, comments got testy. Some members made clear their apparent long held unhappiness with the Board of Education’s budgeting process.
“I think you should pay for it; you’ve got the money,” RTM member Matthew Mandell told school officials present.
RTM member Carla Rea said she thought the RTM should approve the request since she did not have faith that the Board of Education would do it on their own.
“I do not trust the Board of Education,” she said. “Please vote for the whole amount because these people are not to be trusted.
“Don’t let the children pay for what the Board of Education created,” she added.
RTM member Peter Gold also had harsh words for the school board. Like others, he said he was upset that blame for the lack of air conditioning would fall on the RTM, not the schools, if the legislative body did not approve the allocation.
“I refuse to be held hostage by their tactics,” he said. “The funds should come out of their account.”
Catherine Calise agreed, saying that the school board should call a special meeting to fund its own project, “so we can still get the air conditioning in by May 1.”
RTM member Lou Mall urged the RTM to take the lead and approve the request.
“I don’t care how we do it,” he said. “I just want to see it done.”
When RTM member Melissa Kane said she wanted to know whether the Board of Education would be willing to pay for the air conditioning out of its own funds and asked Gordon, the education board’s chair, to come to the podium to answer the question, Gordon came to the podium but said he could not give an answer.
“That (responding) would constitute an illegal meeting,” he said. And then looking at the board’s attorney, Thomas B. Mooney, who was present for another agenda item, asked, “Is that a good summary?”
“We cannot, outside the context of a noticed meeting, have a conversation, or state opinions for a majority of the board,” Gordon said.
Responded Kane: “I wouldn’t ask the Board of Ed to meet inappropriately. I wondered what the protocol was for just giving their own personal opinions as to how they intend to act.”
She added, “I feel really badly for the parents at CES, just horribly that they are going through this, and I would also just say if you’re angry, think about who you are angry at because this is the first time the RTM has seen this.”
