School reconstruction vote this Tuesday
Published on December 3rd, 1997
STONEHAM MA. - Stoneham's registered voters will have to alter their normal voting calendars next week when they will be asked to go to the polls Tuesday to vote on a $39.5 million debt exclusion question to renovate and build new elementary schools.
The debt exclusion question is the only item on the ballot.
The polls at Town Hall on December 9 will open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.
Next week's ballot question comes after an overwhelming Town Meeting vote (540-60) in October to appropriate the funds. Although $39.5 million is being sought, voters are being reminded that 63 percent of the project's costs will be reimbursed by the state.
The question will read "Shall the Town of Stoneham be allowed to exempt from the provisions of Proposition 2 1/2, so-called, the amounts required to pay for the bonds issued in order to
1) Renovate and add to Robin Hood School
2) Renovate and add to Colonial Park School
3) Construct a new South School
4) Construct a new Central School
If the debt exclusion question is approved, property owners can expect to see a yearly tax increase of 30 cents for each $1,000 of property value. Therefore, an average $200,000 home in Stoneham would pay an additional $60 a year in taxes for the next 25 years.
Opponents of the project argue that this debt exclusion question comes while taxpayers are still paying for a debt exclusion that is still on the tax rate from about 1990 and will not leave the rate until about 2002. They claim the actual increase from the project is 80 cents on the tax rate and the reported 30 cent increase represents only the balance from what they are paying now. (An opposition flyer was mailed to some homes on Wednesday of this week. In the flyer, five items are bulleted--three of the items are incorrect and one is an opinion. Only the date of the vote is correct, but the hours of voting are wrong. The flyer also uses a past Stoneham Independent political cartoon without authorization and completely out of context.)
Proponents of the project claim that since the state will reimburse the town 63 percent of the project's overall cost, it is a deal the town can't ignore. If the voters do not approve the debt exclusion question, school officials have said that $15 million in basic school improvements will be needed over future years--all of which would come out of the town's coffers. Without the debt exclsuion question approval, the $15 million in various improvements has been considered a "band-aid" approach by many, since for the same amount of local funds under the state reimbursement project, the town would get much-need brand new schools.
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