Closer look needed at N.E. Voke home building program
Published on October 6th, 1999
STONEHAM, MA - Stoneham Selectmen recently took issue with the home-building program of the Northeast Regional Metropolitan Vocation-al High School in Wakefield.
Stoneham is one of eleven communities in the school's district. Stoneham sends students to the school and pays a portion of its budget.
The program provides free labor to property owners who are willing to hire vocational students to build homes. Property owners apply, and a lottery is held to choose one applicant per year.
A Sept. 5 Boston Globe article criticized the program, questioning the length of the application process and how people were chosen. Applicants have only three weeks to document that they have property, plans to build and financing.
In a Sept. 9 letter Selectman Tony Kennedy asked Northeast Superintendent James Pelli, Jr. for information about the building program. Pelli responded by sending Kennedy paperwork about the program.
Selectmen Conti was unaware of Kennedy's letter. Conti had been on vacation in Europe for several weeks.
At the Sept. 29 meeting Conti said he still had questions he wanted to ask Northeast officials about the building program, specifically regarding the 4000- plus square foot home built in 1996 for Stoneham resident Stephen Columbus.
"Why is the application process so short? What happened to the other applicants in 1996? Why should the developer/lawyer son of the Building Inspector get free labor? And why did they build double the specified 2,100 square feet?" Conti asked.
Vocational School Committee Representative for Stoneham, Anthony DeTeso, said his board plans to lengthen the application process in the future.
"It is up to us," DeTeso said. "And I would assume we are going to make it a longer period of time."
Pelli said the school had 22 applicants in 1996, but only two people returned the applications. And only one of those applications was complete — Columbus'.
"We did not know the situation in Stoneham," Pelli said. "Why should we?"
It is complex:
The building inspector, Robert Columbus, allegedly asked another official to sign permits for his son. But the elder Columbus is in the process of suing the town, and all the facts about who did what to whom are unresolved.
Pelli also said that there have never been square footage standards for the home-building project.
"We build to a plan we think we will be able to complete in a year," Pelli said.
He added, "Extra work done to repair a mistake accounted for more square footage (on the Columbus house)."
Stephen Columbus has sued Northeast over the quality of the work.
On Sept. 29 Conti said he wanted to see Northeast officials at an upcoming selectmen's meeting.
"Why aren't they at least speaking up to defend the work of their students?" he asked in a separate interview.
Pelli said he is reluctant to discuss these matters because of the pending litigation.
But Pelli agreed to speak with any and all of the Stoneham Selectmen in an executive session of the Vocational School Committee; this has yet to be scheduled.
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