Once again, an opportunity to comment on the School Committee presents itself. In the Friday, October 27th Westfield News article covering the School Committee forum, the School Committee said that the Franklin Avenue School needs to close. Why? During the October 2 School Committee meeting, Bill Duval claimed Franklin Avenue was “a great school”. Two weeks later I congratulated him for standing up for Franklin Ave School. He responded by saying it has to close because it will “cost too much to fix it”. I said, “Bill, you said it was a great school!” Bill Duval; “They have to put out buckets when it rains.” Me; “They just put on a new roof!” Bill; “Well, you know….”. He then turned and walked away. Maybe after his praising comments of October 2, others reminded him of the ‘talking points’. Remember a few years ago when the City of Westfield spent millions on renovating City Hall? No children go to school at City Hall, but somehow millions of dollars were found to fix that up.
When asked about a new school on the Franklin Avenue School site, Mr. Gosselin is quoted as saying the Franklin site “wasn’t big enough”. According to the City’s records, Franklin Avenue School is on 9 acres of School Committee controlled land. Right now, the School Committee land at Cross and Ashley Streets is just 1.6 acres. Abner Gibbs has 3.5 acres. There are over 12 acres of unprotected School Committee land at the South Middle School. The S.C. had no problem sacrificing its land to make way for Amelia Park, the Children’s Museum, and the Boys and Girls Club. Why not for an elementary school? Cynthia Sullivan commented on the prospect of an elementary school on the South Middle site. She is quoted as saying ” a new road would have to be built there”. So! Compare her concern with the fact that the City has a plan to reconstruct 16 streets around Cross St. to accommodate a new school there! That’s a fact. Ask the City Engineer. She is also quoted as saying the people living around Westfield High, Paper Mill, and Munger Hill were upset with the construction of those schools then. They had a right to be; the City built schools on Article 97 protected open space at both Paper Mill AND at Munger Hill. But this latest time, the School Committee, and the City, were caught. Ms. Sullivan is also quoted as saying the City did study the Franklin Avenue site eight years ago. Really? Our Freedom of Information Act request to the City, for site studies, came back negative. The City informed us that no alternative site studies were made. She also said “when it (Franklin) was looked at…there was a problem about it being in a flood zone.” The City of Westfield’s FEMA flood zone maps show the Franklin site is not in the flood plain/flood zone. A study was done?
In 1950, the City took 24 acres of land by eminent domain off of Western Avenue to build the Highland Elementary School. The documents of taking say the land was for that school, potential School Department offices, and for school expansion. Why did JCJ Architecture’s 2011 school building study claim that there is no room for expansion at Highland Elementary School? That claim has no merit whatsoever. Why not add to Highland?
Like the politicians do in Boston and Washington, they ask to be re-elected so they can ‘fix the problems’. Right.
Tom Smith
