LETTER: Reaction to the Failure of Referendum Question 3

As part of the failed $44 million facilities referendum, $35 million was going to be for maintenance on all school buildings with the exclusion of the Fermi facility.

The decision on the Fermi facility is key to any strategic planning and could directly influence how we utilize all our school buildings - not just Fermi and JFK, but our elementary schools as well. Could we use Fermi for our middle school? Could we then use JFK for our intermediate grades 3-5? What elementary schools would we then keep for our lower grades if we use JFK intermediate grades? If we keep JFK as our middle school what are the plans to address the lack of space and classrooms at JFK? What is the plan to make JFK a state of the art school? What are we doing with the buildings we don’t use for schools? These are all questions that need to be answered before we invest $35 million in school facility work, not to mention the added work as part of the energy referendum .

I want to see our students get the best facilities we can afford and want to see them maintained on an ongoing basis, not just every 10-15 years with a massive referendum. It pained me to work against a referendum, that portions of, would have funded school maintenance, but the Town Council failed to demonstrate there was any long term plan in place or a vision for the long term makeup of our school facilities.

A decision of this magnitude deserves proper planning, due diligence and a lot of community input. It is all about what’s best for our students and I hope the TC and the BOE uses this input from the “community” to develop a plan the “community” will be proud to support.

Vinnie Weseliza
Enfield