To the Editor:
Unnecessary delays and tactics to obstruct what the town needs costs us money — sometimes lots of it. It cost us an extra $16.5 million when we expanded Helen Keller Middle School and built the new Samuel Staples Elementary School. Let’s not let it happen again with the new EMS facility.
I served on the 1997 School Building Committee. We were charged with following through on the recommendations from an earlier study looking at what to do about our school space shortfall. After more than a year of study, analysis, expert advice and hard work, a majority of the committee recommended we add space to Helen Keller and make it a grade 5-8 school and that renovations be made to what is now referred to as old Staples and make it a K-4 school. We estimated the cost at $25.5 million.
Those of us in the majority on the committee recognized that the usual anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-public schools activists in town — and on our committee — were sure to seek delay of this plan if they couldn’t entirely defeat it. When the proposal was put to referendum, these naysayers threw themselves into the fight and, in October 1998, we lost.
We went back to the drawing board to come up with plan B.
Plan B resulted in two separate building projects and a second building committee. The 1997 committee completed a much smaller addition to Helen Keller at a cost of just over $11 million. The second committee built our new Staples Elementary School at a cost of just over $30 million.
In addition, we had to install portable classrooms at old Staples and undertake a mold remediation project at old Staples at a combined cost of just over $1 million. While we undoubtedly ended up with a great result — an expanded Keller and a state-of-the-art, award winning new Staples, years of delay were added and the town spent $16.5 million more than the original proposal would have cost.
Some students learned in suboptimal classrooms and others were exposed to mold for longer than necessary. Also, a generation of students spent most or all of their elementary or middle school years studying amidst ongoing construction, and the taxpayers paid — and are still paying — principle and interest on that extra $16.5 million. Was the tradeoff worth it? I report, you decide.
Why do I tell you this history? Because it feels as though it is happening again with regard to the new EMS headquarters. Just as in the late ’90’s and early ’00’s, few question the need for new space for EMS. The very poor condition of the existing building is obvious to anyone who traverses Sport Hill Road at the intersection of Center Road — and who doesn’t ever pass that intersection? And yet, there are folks — in fact, some are the very same people as 25 years ago — dragging their feet and trying to slow down the process.
And please note, their objection back then was not a political thing. At that time, every relevant elected or appointed board and commission was majority Republican. Of course, we should never rush and make mistakes because of haste, but neither can we allow bad faith or lack of trust or political agendas to slow things down. This tactic of saying I’m for the project but I don’t like this or that detail is nothing new. It’s just one tool from the same toolbox used before.
We are a different town since the building of the new elementary school. We vote differently than we did then, and the composition of the town is different. Last week many of our residents witnessed these tactics in full force. Many were appalled.
The Board of Selectmen, led by the first selectman, takes the lead on negotiating contracts for the purchase of land. It has always been that way. That is the same process followed to purchase the Morehouse Road property and the Four Corners property in the ’90’s and the South Park Avenue property in 2008. I know. I was on either the Board of Selectmen or Finance for all those purchases.
Let’s make sure we don’t once again spend more time or money to address a pressing town need because a minority appears to want to slow walk another significant expenditure to serve their own purposes. Sadly, you will see plenty more of what I am talking about.
I have written previously about the unprecedented support you have shown for Dave and Nick and all four of our board of finance candidates. They are always available and I encourage you to reach out to them. Feel free to question them directly, but let’s pull together as a community and get this job done, and avoid the mistakes of the past.
Robert Lessler
Easton
Robert Lessler served 12 terms as a Democratic selectman. In 2023 he chose not to seek re-election for another term.
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