Waltham Residents Rally At City Hall With Message For Councilors

WALTHAM, MA — Monday night more than 100 residents took up signs and rallied outside of Waltham City Hall to get the attention of City Councilors and officials. Their message? Cooperate with the School Committee and do it for the kids. Oh, and don't build a new high school on the existing school spot.

The School Committee and sub committee recommended that the city work with the Stigmatine religious order to build a new high school on that property. When they brought that proposal to the City Council after some back and forth and questions about whether the Stigmatines would consider negotiations the City Council voted it down. The School Committee maintains that the site is the best for the city and for the students. But the two boards appear to be at an impasse. In order for any new school building to be built it must first have the approval of the School Committee and the council and the mayor but no one seems to be able to agree.

Enter a petition and now a rally. Both have the aim of getting the City Council's attention and both want the end result to be boards working together.

"It seems like it's about the Stigmatines but it's not. It's only about the Stigmatines in so far as that what happens to be the what the School Committee Building Committee has identified as the preferred site," said John Saxe who started an online petition asking for the City Council to cooperate with the School Committee.

His petition has more than 1,400 signatures as of Monday evening.

The overall objective of the petition is to get cooperation, first within the Waltham City government, the mayor and City Council, he said.

"The opposition has put us in a stalemate. And we're trying to make sure that they see the community is demanding cooperation," he told Patch.

The goal of Monday night's rally is parallel to that goal, said organizers. But rally organizers say they also want to let City Council know they don't want to build in place at the high school.

The two boards edged forward on cooperation at a meeting last week where they had the chance to come together in one room and ask lingering questions. It seemed the other option much talked about was building at the existing high school. By the end of the meeting the mayor told the group she was proud of them for coming together as such.

But not everyone was as impressed.

Saxe said although he recognized the value of transparency, the boards needed an opportunity to sit down together and talk it through behind closed doors.

"What you had instead were politicians using the opportunity to ask questions ... and use that line of questioning to make their political points," he said.

So Monday night Saxe will join with the separate but parallel protest Monday night. Organizers Krissy Scheufele and Donna Megquier and a number of other Waltham residents plan to show solidarity with the School Committee and ask the City Council to reconsider their stance.

"I am hopeful that the community will come together to show [City Council] that this matters," said Scheufele who has an child in 8th grade and one at the high school in a message to Patch.

She said she was inspired to host a rally because she felt the students were missing from the discussion.

"John Graceffa did a great job outlining some of the problems with building on site and the implications to students but I think that the [City Council] needs to hear that from students. At the end of the day it’s all about the kids in the city and building this amazing high school that supports the education plan and supports the kids."

And, she said, she wants City Council to know one more thing:

"We don’t support building the new high school at its existing location," she said.

Four things

Saxe said the movement as he sees it comes down to four things: supporting the education plan that was developed by the School Committee; building the High School somewhere that allows the city to preserve the existing high school building so that can be used as a future grades k-8 school in the very near future; building a new high school in an area where everyone can have reasonable access to it regardless of where they live in the city. And last, to assure that the students' education isn't compromised by construction.

"They don't deserve to be cheated out of their high school education just because some city officials couldn't come together on a plan," said Saxe.

At the end of the day, he said, the petition and movement happening now in the city is a show of support for the School Committee and the committee that was set up to make a recommendation for a school site.

"They are headed by the top educational official in the city, Dr. Echelson, and the top elected officials who are elected to provide that guidance. So for City Council to disregard what they're recommending is absurd," he said.

Solution within reach

Add to that, Saxe, who has invested much time and thought into studying the issue himself, said they feel that a mutually beneficial outcome is within reach.

"It's not just one that's minimally acceptable but actually strengthens the positions of each one that they couldn't achieve in the absence of a negotiated outcome," he said.

What's missing in the conversation is for city officials actually taking the time to listen and look at a bigger picture he said.

"Everybody needs to take a step back from their entrenched positions and remember that this is about not only generations of Waltham students but their families and entire communities. Because if we get this right Waltham will be a much richer place for us all to live for decades to come and conversely if we get it wrong we really run the risk of diminishing the value not only of our prop and the quality of education, but the quality of life that people who live in Waltham appreciate about the city and drew them here in the first place," he said.

As for the petition? Saxe said he hopes events like the protest will help keep the momentum going. Eventually he'll present it to the City Council, Mayor and the Stigmatines.

"But really it's up to them. The petition can't force anyone to do anything it's just a request for collaboration," he said.

Happening Monday night in Politics:

• The Waltham City Council will have their regularly scheduled meeting, the Waltham High School is not on the list of active agenda items, but the Stigmatine's property is on there. (see agenda here)
• The Waltham School Committee, Superintendent, and School Business Administrator will be holding a workshop on the FY19 Budget at Waltham High School.
• The Waltham School Building Committee will meet at the high school.
• Waltham's Fernald Use Committee meets tonight at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.

(For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Waltham Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Photos courtesy Krissy Scheufele.