Why I Am Voting For Dennis Senibaldi

I believe that we are at a crossroads, and that it is time to consider a new direction for our School District.  That can only come if we elect someone to the School Board that will bring a different perspective with a renewed sense of fiscal restraint that will always be considered when solving our needs… so that the people who helped build this community can afford to stay here and continue to enjoy it.

We have some challenges, but we have known about them for quite some time. Unfortunately, the direction we are on has set us on a course of continued out of control spending with no end in sight.

The cost of the High School to Windham taxpayers was over $50M.  It’s a beautiful facility that we are all proud of.  It serves four grades and up to 1,000 students.  

As the WHS was being built there were unfortunate, costly issues that came up that impacted the project.  To compensate, the building wound up being smaller, with less capacity and a scaled down auditorium.  We should use this as a learning experience going forward. 

I don’t mean for any of this to be taken as critical comments… but I remember the WHS project being sold to us as easily expandable, so that when the time came when we needed more space… we could easily and cost effectively add to it.  That time has come, but now we’re being told it’s not feasible to do so for a variety of reasons.

Instead, we are being asked to spend another $50M ($31M bond + $20M interest) on another building that is less than half the physical size of WHS – and it will only accommodate 500 students.  Another thing we should not lose sight of, is the fact that this project will not solve all of our current needs.  And we will NOT be eligible to receive any state aid if this project is approved before July 1, 2013.

As a comparison to the new proposed school… at about the same time we planned to build our High School, Bedford planned and built a combination Middle School / High School for about the same cost as WHS. Their school is also beautiful and state of the art, but it handles double the students – as well as six grades -- 7 through 12. 

Hindsight is 20/20, but let’s use what we now know and look ahead to what will have if the new school project is approved this March.  The WHS and proposed new school together, would represent a total investment of over $100M to Windham Taxpayers, and we will end up with less than what Bedford has for half the money.  In addition, our two buildings combined would handle only 75% of the students that Bedford’s MS/HS can.  And after the new 7^th/8^th grade project is completed, we’ve been told there is still more building/modifications for our other schools that are on the radar for the future.

All of the above keeps bringing me back to the 2011 committee recommendations that suggested against building a new school. It also keeps nagging on me that we just built a kindergarten addition that provides seven large classrooms at an efficient cost of $2.5M.  This is why I believe it is time for a fresh perspective on our School Board and I’m glad that Dennis Senibaldi has stepped up to run. 

He has construction expertise and he was on the 2011 committee mentioned above.  He will bring those experiences with him, and he will not be easily swayed.  Dennis is a reasonable person that will listen to, and lobby on behalf of his constituents.  I will gladly cast my vote for him on March 12th.