In January 2012, the Westfield Education Association (WEA) was asked by the neighborhood group challenging the 96,000 square foot/600 student elementary school design proposed at Ashley St. and Cross St., how the union felt about the project. The union informed us that it was shocked when hearing of the school plan, and its location, during a WEA meeting in November 2009. At that meeting, City Councilor-elect, Brown, described mayor-elect Knapik’s plan for a 600 student school . Needless to say, the people of the Ashley St. School and Cross St. playground neighborhood were shocked and stunned when they realized they had helped to elect a Ward 2 councilor and mayor that willfully hid this agenda from the Ward 2 citizens prior to the Nov. 2009 election day.
When the School Building Committee’ plans were made public in June, 2011, many neighborhood residents attended the public meetings to voice legitimate concerns for the enormous negative impacts the school would impose on the neighboring homes including; lack of ownership of on-site parking; massive increases in vehicular traffic – just 20 side-of-street drop off spaces; no turn around areas for busses; the faculty and staff having to use St. Peter and St. Casimir’s parking lot; and especially the loss of open space and ball fields from the Cross St. playground. That December we discovered the City of Westfield was breaking state and federal open space laws – laws Westfield already knew of – protecting the Cross St. playground. Documents show the City of Westfield acknowledged these laws when it sought $500k in matching funds from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EOEA) in 2010 when seeking funds to refurbish the Chapman playground.
Our efforts turned to the City of Westfield’s improper actions, which led us to learn of those we believe helped allow the city’s process to undermine state and federal open space laws. These state laws are to be monitored by the EOEA, and it’s Secretary, Richard Sullivan, Jr. The state’s Environmental Justice Policy, adopted from the Federal E.J. policy by EOEA in 2002, affords poor and disadvantaged neighborhoods numerous protections for their cultural and recreational environments, and emphasizes the rights of the E.J. neighborhoods to participate in the planning of state or Federally funded projects in their neighborhoods. The Massachusetts E.J. policy is the EOEA’s policy. For over two years, Secretary Sullivan was an advisory member of this project’s School Building Committee. In a School Committee meeting in the spring of 2011, the mayor announced the tentative opening of the proposed school for the fall of 2013. His prediction was made well before the disadvantaged neighborhood residents were ever made aware of impacts, size, and scope of this school plan.
After successful and costly legal complaints made by the neighborhood’s residents against the City of Westfield, Mr. Sullivan decided to recuse himself from the School Building Committee. In the June 25, 2012 Westfield News article ‘New School too Big?’, Mr. Sullivan says he doesn’t know where all the Article 97 protected land is in Westfield. Well his subordinates did. In the same article, they said Westfield has to get National Park Service approval and state approval before doing any construction work that physically alters the use of the Cross St. playground. Right before the superior court placed an injunction on the project in September 2012, the City of Westfield destroyed the Cross St. playground. Go see for yourself. Visit www.savetheneighborhood.org if you wish to learn more regarding the massive size of this project, the skewed process that bore it, and how it is planned to reduce the number of neighborhood elementary schools in Westfield.
Sincerely,
Thomas Smith
