District 12 Board Meeting April 9, 2007
Subject: Unbelievable
Please read the vision of the Building Committee following this report.
Last nights’ meeting for the BOE in the Shepaug library was unbelievable!
It showed clearly how Gary Steinman operates as Vice Chair of the Board and Chairman of the Building Committee. It also demonstrates how he pushes the Consolidated agenda ahead at all costs. Let me summarize:
A. The BOE voted to not to accept the IMA. Washington withdrew from the IMA late last week and it was presented for the first time at the BOE meeting. The BOE lawyer presented his position that the IMA was illegal which was distributed in the packet over the weekend to board members. It was the same position that was solicited by Dr. Carmelich in December 2006.
B. The second action was to vote on a motion to bring the Consolidated School on the Roxbury property to a June 19, 2007 referendum. Gary Steinman presented some strategic numbers which he had prepared (not vetted) hours before the meeting.
These numbers compared two alternatives:
1. The “3 school renovate to new plan” that was presented to the voters in March 2006. The numbers were adjusted upward for an additional 5% scenario contingency and 1 year of escalation at 6%.
2. The “Consolidated school brand new school on the Roxbury property” using the SLAM's numbers from the phase 2 of the recent feasibility study.
Gary Steinman reviewed his numbers (cost analysis) prepared on 4/9/07 (which he had not revealed to the board until the topic was presented at the meeting).
He stated that SLAM will be brought in to update the numbers and there would be no bidding process since this is an extension of the process started with SLAM.
The region would go to referendum with strategic numbers and no floor plan.
It is assumed by observers of the meeting there will be no detailed specifications, no zoning approval, no wetlands approval, no health department approval, no conservation approval, and no state DOT approval, prior to the referendum. This is because the time is too short. The primary objective for BOE is to get something to referendum by June.
The second piece of information was a schedule of events or a time line to reach the June referendum date.
Only two board members (Irene Allan and Gary Steinman) had copies of this two page document which was prepared on 4/4/07 at 10AM.
Mrs. Allan or Mr. Steinman stated that it was prepared by the bonding lawyer at the request of Bob Giesen.
Here are the key dates:
4/20/07 - Notice/agenda of board meeting posted
4/23/07 - Regular board meeting to recommend appropriation and borrowing
5/02/07 - Notice of pubic hearing posted and published
5/04/07 - Notice/agenda of meeting to the board posted and distributed
5/07/07 - Public hearing
- Regular BOE meeting to adopt Bond resolution
5/18/07 - Notice of referendum delivered to town clerks
6/04/07 - Earliest date for notice of referendum published and posted
6/13/07 - Latest date for notice of referendum published and posted
6/19/07 - Referendum
This certainly shows how the leadership of the Board of Education functions.
1. Information is withheld until the last minute, keeping many members in the dark.
2. Before the building committee met on 4/4/07, the schedule was formulated and held as a secret.
3. The building committee voted on and recommended delaying the referendum until November 2007 so that a complete job could be done with all alternatives. Their recommendation was ignored by the BC chairman. Gary Steinman presented the alternative that was abandoned by the BC as not feasible.
4. Finally, it was stated by the leadership of the BOE that build-to-suit would not be considered for the June referendum since there was not time to bring in an architect and a construction manager to review the Bridgewater and Roxbury plans.
This crisis approach has worked well for the current BOE leadership. Create a crisis by waiting to the last minute when a vote is needed to avert a significant cost. Then limit the information and time the BOE members and the public have for deliberation.
Ed Wainwright
Bridgewater, CT
Reaction by a Roxbury Resident
Thanks Ed,
In other parts of the world this is called Communism. Certain Board members are acting like Fidel Castro & his puppets. Maybe we should have a referendum to let the public decide whether we should get these BOE member’s tickets to Cuba for a permanent stay.
I’ll offer to pay to get rid of offending BOE members who are not serving the public (children especially) but rather their own ‘politically’ separatist plans to keep a BOE in power over three small communities.
And why do we think they would want to do this? The answer is simple.
“They want unquestionable power as to defining budgets and use of the money that voters approve for them to use each year. Further they want to be allowed to shift monies without question for their operations. They want to give themselves a ‘fiefdom’ that will be untouchable by the small communities that feed them this wonderful thing called educational and operational tax monies from the communities.”
I wonder what these people are getting on the ‘backside’ as I’ve seen this before in other Towns and Cities. Gee, let’s start by looking at $1.85 million for a piece of property that isn’t worth more than one single building lot at best market rate of $600,000. Where does everybody think the rest of the money is going?
And still, does everybody forget that the BOE stated to the Towns, “… that the existing schools are in dilapidated condition.” We (Roxbury, Bridgewater and Washington) gave the regional BOE educational, operational and maintenance tax monies every year so that the buildings would be properly maintained.
So, BOE, where did you spend the money that was supposed to take care of our community schools? Gee, maybe if you had taken care of them we wouldn’t need anything except for small additions to what space we’ve already got.
Again, I say, we need to take our school buildings back and control the maintenance and upgrades ourselves because, really, BOE is not experienced in maintaining buildings. They have proven this by asking/ begging for a new school, and on a new piece of property. AND, still the requirement for the three communities to fund, whatever the reuse of the existing buildings would become, hasn’t been entered into the monetary equations by BOE. Why? Because, like Washington who has a Cultural Arts end user who is interested in their building, Roxbury and Bridgewater should be forced by the BOE to go find similar alternative users. They (the BOE) are users, abusers, takers, liars, and cheaters. When are we going to smarten up, revolt, and get rid of these people? If we don’t who will? And what are we setting ourselves up for next if their power is wielded and unchallenged? Does anyone really believe that by giving in to the BOE’s biased and incomplete Proforma evaluations that they’ll be ‘off our backs’ for a while. No way, how about the fact that they want to spend $750,000. +/- on the High School Track Upgrades when it should really only cost about $250,000. (I got the quote on this one from a professional Track Upgrades company) or when they say that the ‘backside only’ roof replacement of the front section of the existing Booth School is going to cost over $100,000. This is insanity at its worst. For $100,000, I could take off the entire roof, buy new roof trusses, install them, sheath and shingle the roof and put new gutters and leaders on. Who do they think they are kidding???!!!
“A vote of ‘NO CONFIDENCE’ is overdue for the BOE Leadership!”
Warren H. Peter, Roxbury Resident
Thanks for letting me vent. WHP
Web Site District 12
April 16, 2007
Welcome to the web pages of the Region #12 Elementary School Building Committee.
We reconvene at this time to develop elementary school renewal plans in an atmosphere that has become quite politically charged. People have strong feelings about our schools and about what kind of school project should prevail. The Committee’s job, however, is to accomplish its technical planning assignments as proficiently and efficiently as possible, in compliance with the Board’s Educational Specifications. It is not our role, and the Committee would not be the proper forum, to engage in the ongoing political debates pitting Region-based elementary school projects against Town-based build-to-suit projects or a three school strategy against a single school strategy. The Building Committee will not decide which strategy will prevail. Accordingly, we will be developing the best plans we can both for the renovation and expansion of our three Town-based Schools and for the construction of a new regional elementary school. We also may be working with Town-based groups in connection with any plans that the Towns, themselves, may choose to submit to the Board of Education for its consideration. Our work will be done in public, it will be submitted in due course to the Board of Education for its consideration and the Board ultimately will present it to the Region’s voters for approval. It is also our job to communicate our work to the public. We will strive to be as transparent as possible and to provide the public with as much information as possible on which to base its ultimate choice for housing elementary education in Region #12. These web pages will be one of the tools we use in that endeavor. We will post our agendas, minutes and other documents to these pages and I will take the opportunity from time to time to comment on what is going on. We would expect, also, to hold public information meetings at key points in the process and, of course, we invite the public to attend any of our working meetings and to provide input and feedback. Please remember, as we display our work in progress here, that the planning and design of educational facilities is a step-by-step process. We may see many problematic alternatives and troublesome cost estimates before we converge on better ones. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude as Chair to the members of the Building Committee who have been willing to take our job on one more time. It is the professionalism of its past work and its experience of having worked well together in the past that make me optimistic about meeting the challenges before us..
Gary SteinmanChair Elementary School Building Committee
Vice Chair, Board of Education
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