Brookline Passes Budget Money For Baldwin Ninth School Site, Despite Pushback

BROOKLINE, MA — Brookline's elected officials voted tonight on the budget. Generally, budgets sail through Town Meeting, as they're hammered out by committees, including selectmen and the finance board (known as the Advisory Committee) well in advance. But this year, there's an amount that has some people digging their heels in, not because of the cost, but because of what it's funding: Further Ninth School study at the Baldwin School site.

The School Committee requested the allocation of $1.5 million, to investigate next steps toward building a new K-8 school where the old Baldwin school and Soule playground. But after some negotiation, the School Committee, selectmen and the financial board hammered out a compromise and appropriate $100,000 to dig deeper into studies of the site, including conservation issues, into the budget and then go back to Town Meeting for $1.4 Million, depending on what was found. Town Meeting voted to do just that, despite some push back from a handful of Town Meeting Members.

This is the first time Town Meeting members have voted on the the ninth school selection process.

Subscribe to Brookline Patch for local news alerts and newsletters.

After years of discussion on the need to build a new school in town to address increasing enrollment, narrowing down the options in the past year, and multiple public meetings on the topic, the School Committee and Selectmen voted to go with the Baldwin School site in November at a joint School Committee/ Selectmen meeting. Each potential site the committees looked into before the Baldwin site sparked concern, and officials repeatedly told the public that no site was perfect, but selecting a space to build a ninth school is a top priority.

Still, almost immediately following the vote, some neighbors cried foul, citing traffic, and access to Soule Park and conservation and recreation requirements as reasons for the committees to go back to the drawing board. They even threatened to sue.

Town Meeting Member Janice Kahn encouraged Town Meeting Members to vote against appropriating even the $100,000 to move forward on the Baldwin site.

"The longer we as a town insist on a site that will likely take years of legal process to move forward the more time and money we will waste," she said.

But Town Meeting Member Gladstone encouraged those who were against the Baldwin site for environmental reasons to redirect their energies and consider buying and donating adjacent property that has been on the market for a while.

Town Meeting Voted via electronic vote to pass the $100,000 appropriation for the Baldwin School Site, 182 in favor 30 against, with four members abstaining.

Brookline’s elementary school enrollment grew from 3,900 in 2005 to some 5,500 by this year. Officials say it's expected to continue to grow to around 6,200 by 2020.

School officials were hoping to start construction in 2018 and opening a new building at the earliest in 2020.

"Our intent is to create a win-win. A win for the schools and a win for our parks and recreation infrastructure. This is a once in a generation opportunity. As a result of this project not only will the town's children be attending a state of the art school, but more Brookline families will enjoy our parkland and recreation facilities," said Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Neil Wishinsky.

Photos of Town Meeting on May 23, 2017 by Jenna Fisher/ Brookline Patch