AMHERST — School and town officials are seeking an extension from the state to give them time to develop an alternative elementary school building plan after Town Meeting last week rejected the $67.2 million Wildwood School project.
Michael Morris, interim superintendent for the Amherst schools, Amherst School Committee Chairwoman Katherine Appy and Town Manager Paul Bockelman sent a letter Tuesday to Katie Loeffler, capital project manager for the Massachusetts School Building Authority. It requests an extension to June so school officials can revisit the concept of a project with co-located K-6 schools, totaling 670 students, at the Wildwood School site on Strong Street.
This would be an alternate plan to the one approved by voters Nov. 8 but defeated by Town Meeting Nov. 14. It called for co-locating two schools for Grades 2 to 6, totaling 750 students, at the Wildwood site on Strong Street, turning Crocker Farm School into an early childhood center and closing Fort River School.
The four-page letter is a mandated response to the MSBA following a failed vote and explains what happened and what steps officials intend to take.
Town Meeting voted 108-106 against the project, falling 37 votes short of the two-thirds needed to authorize borrowing, less than a week after a townwide vote in favor of the Proposition 2½ debt exclusion override, which passed by 126 votes, 6,825 to 6,699.
The officials cite three reasons why the measure was not supported by Town Meeting, none of which were related to cost. Those reasons are the loss of the existing three K-6 schools, the size of the new building and the concept of co-located schools and whether they would be permanent.
“In conversations that have occurred in the past week, we have heard many questions and comments from Town Meeting members about staying in the MSBA process by shifting to the twin K-6 model, 670 students, that was approved as an enrollment option by the MSBA last November,” town officials wrote to the MSBA. “We are requesting an extension of the feasibility study to consider that option.”
Falling short of that, Amherst officials asked for a shorter extension to March 31 for a possible revote by Town Meeting.
“Offering more time for stakeholders’ voices to be included and heard by Town Meeting members might assist in their deliberations,” officials wrote in the letter.
Morris said in an earlier interview that it was unlikely the MSBA would allow major changes to the building project. If the process for building the co-located schools does not move forward, the town and schools would not be able to submit letters of interest for a new project until 2018.
Both Wildwood and Fort River have several problems with their open classroom design, including noise and lack of natural light. Wildwood needs a new boiler, estimated at $400,000, and Fort River a new roof, projected at $1 million.
The Amherst School Committee met a night after the Town Meeting vote, with member Phoebe Hazzard citing the defeat as a huge lost opportunity and pointing to the project being derailed by “narrow self-interest, fear of change, fear of coming together as a unified community, deep distrust of any leadership, including leadership we have chosen.”
Hazzard was in the majority that voted 4-1 to recommend the project in January.
But Vira Douangmany Cage, who cast the dissenting vote, said the decision by Town Meeting means it is time to come to a middle path that would win support from the community.
New memberEric Nakajima, who joined the board in October, said he voted in favor of the project at Town Meeting, adding that Amherst “can’t condemn another generation of kids to inadequate buildings and professional staff to lousy work environments.”
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
