School building project update
Published on November 28th, 2001
STONEHAM, MA - The new South and Central Schools are up and running, and plans are moving forward to rebuild Robin Hood, beginning in June 2002 and Colonial Park, beginning in June 2003. Drainage work around the Robin Hood School must be done before the school is built.
The School Committee plans to request a Special Town Meeting in February. One article presented by the schools will ask for $5 million for additional construction costs. Another proposed article, presented by the schools or the town, would ask for funds for drainage improvements around Robin Hood.
In 1997 a townwide ballot vote approved spending 39.5 million — as part of a debt exclusion from Proposition 2 1/2 — to build four new elementary schools. Four years, two schools and around $23 million later, school officials are uncertain whether the town would support the project at the polls, but they believe they can get the votes at Town Meeting.
Connelly wrote to the Department of Revenue this summer when the School Building Committee thought the total overrun to finish the schools would be $5 million. Connelly asked DOR if another townwide ballot vote was necessary to get the additional $5 million under the debt exclusion. DOR said that since the scope of the project had not changed, a second vote was not necessary; Town Meeting could appropriate the funds.
According to DOR’s logic, the dollar value wouldn’t matter, but the schools are nervous because they only have a written OK for $5 million. Putting the drainage costs in a separate article gets around this concern.
The only person at the summit meeting not affiliated with any board or newspaper was John DeGeorge of Franklin Street. He didn’t like the schools’ plan.
“Robin Hood should be bid as a stand alone project with the drainage included,” DeGeorge said. “What if people approve money for the schools but not the drainage?”
The School Committee is waiting to get the final cost figures for work at Robin Hood and Colonial Park before deciding what to request from a February Town Meeting.
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