Letter to the Editor: Fiscally responsible long term town planning.

Since 2017, Weston’s town leadership and various boards have grappled with much needed renovations of its schools. Ultimately, however, they have failed to develop a long-term capital plan that addresses the needs of its students and the greater community in a fiscally-responsible way. Unfortunately, the latest iteration of this journey was an ill-conceived proposal that lacked sound judgement and proper planning.

And so, we are relieved that Sam Nestor has followed our lead – and heeded our concerns and those expressed by many members of the community at the May 20th Board of Education meeting – to abandon a plan that from the start was myopic in scope, failed to answer how this will impact educational outcomes, and threatened to repeat the fiscal imprudence of the past, from which the town of Weston is only now emerging 20 years later.

While we are cautiously optimistic that this moment presents an opportunity to come together to develop a holistic and fiscally-responsible long-term plan that serves our students and community, we are under no illusion that this process will be an easy one. It simply defies logic to assume that the same leadership that has ‘kicked the can’ for so long – and wasted significant time and town resources over the years - will suddenly exhibit thoughtfulness. Nonetheless, we remain hopeful.

For us to successfully move forward, we believe it will require a profound change in mindset and operational framework for the town’s leadership and board members. As we discussed during our last BOE meeting:

• It will require boards to work in concert as opposed to in silos – perhaps through the creation of a cross-board working group – to develop a full range of proposals that identify the current and future capital needs of not only WMS and the school district at large, but also those of the town.
  
• It will require the Board of Finance to review that range of proposals and determine the financial implications of each.
  
• It will require town leadership to attempt to build community alignment by disseminating that range of proposals, accompanied by the estimated financial and educational outcome impact of each, and provide forums for public comment and interactive debate – perhaps town halls may be warranted.
  
• And most importantly, it will require town leaders and its boards to listen to the community.

As the only two members on the BOE to vote against this rushed and, quite frankly, infeasible middle school proposal, it was more than apparent to us that the town was headed down a fiscal path that no one – including leadership – fully understood, and at a pace that failed to adequately inform and garner feedback from the Weston community.

What was not apparent to us was why fellow board members supported an accelerated process to push forth a half-baked proposal that was narrow in scope and fiscally-irresponsible, and to do so without consultation with and seeking feedback from the Boards of Selectmen and Finance. This has once again resulted in the all-to-familiar ‘rinse and repeat’ cycle of inadequate planning, uninformed decision making, and an overall abdication of leadership that will only continue to hurt our students and town citizens. We all deserve more.

We finally have an opportunity to change the trajectory of this multi-year stalled process. The only question that remains is whether town leadership undertakes this effort in good faith.

David Felton and Michael Guido
Weston Board of Education Members