Public excluded from building discussion

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To the Editor:

Last Thursday, Oct. 5, I attended a joint meeting of the Tisbury board of selectmen, planning board, finance committee, executive committee, and the Tisbury School building committee. The meeting began with the announcement that there would be no public comment, that this was an opportunity for the town’s boards to “catch up” on the building committee’s financial picture for their plan for the future demolition and rebuilding of our elementary school. The building committee has voted to ask Tisbury taxpayers to spend $47 million dollars on an 80,000-square-foot school, 35 percent larger than what we have now, with a projected lifespan of 50 years. According to Tisbury’s finance director, Jon Snyder, if this project succeeds in getting a two-thirds majority vote at town meeting, as well as at the ballot box next spring, Tisbury’s real estate taxes will be going up by about 10 percent of your valuation, or about $100 per $100,000 valuation of your property, every year for 20 years.

The building committee has turned a deaf ear to the many public requests for an independent evaluation of the condition of the existing school. It is a classic 1929 structure, with a gym added in 1938, and extensive renovations and additions done in the mid 90s. It also has a new roof and boiler. Without an objective study (there was one done a few years ago, but no one can find it) it is not known to the taxpayer if the building is worth saving. The building committee has been asked repeatedly for this information, and have not given a satisfactory reply to our citizens’ honest inquiries as to how the committee reached its conclusions. How can we make such a momentous, expensive decision without objective, factual information? Do we really need a new school, or do we just want one? Does this plan recreate existing space? How will it change the neighborhood? With a declining school enrollment, it doesn’t add up.

If we vote to tear down the school, we will lose an opportunity to show the students that we value the continuing use of a historic building, and that we see it as an asset to the town. This has been done in many towns across the Commonwealth. Renovating would also prevent many tons of material from being carted away as waste to be buried in a landfill “somewhere.”

Why not take a closer look at a renovation with an addition, you might ask? “It’s too late now, and there is not enough money,” said the building committee’s Owners’ Project Manager of Daedalus Projects Inc., Richard Marks. This, after many repeated requests for an objective, factual study, is unacceptable. Does anyone else have the sense that we, the taxpayers, are being pushed into a bad decision?

 

Marie Laursen
Tisbury

1 COMMENT

  1. Was this the first meeting you attended? There have been MULTIPLE meetings for the public to attend and vote at. Have you ever been in the school? Do you have a student there? Do you know teachers there? This school is not up to current educational standards in a school building. Needs in a school have changed TREMENDOUSLY from 1927. A building that is falling apart and makes learning more difficult is not an asset to the town. The building committee has put together a fabulous website with all the information and studies listed you should look at (https://www.tisburyma.gov/home/news/tisbury-school-building-project-website). This is not a want, this is a NEED.

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