Saugus not keen to idea of land swap

SAUGUS – Wearing his vocational school committee hat, Peter Rossetti raised the subject of a possible land swap, which in turn raised a number of eyebrows.During a meeting with the Finance Committee, Rossetti, who sits on the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational School Committee, mentioned that the school is looking to rebuild or expand. And he tossed out the idea of a possible land swap to make it happen.”It’s a long shot,” Rossetti said later.Rossetti said not unlike the town’s joint School Building Committee, the vocational school is eyeing the Curley property that sits near the junction of Walnut and Water streets. He said the idea would be to trade a portion of the property for a portion near the Department of Public Works property that’s adjacent to Breakheart Reservation.Rossetti, who chaired the town’s joint committee on new schools, is not selling out his own town for a regional school, however. He said the big picture would include enough land to expand or build a new vocational school, and build a new middle school or high school for Saugus.The joint committee had been looking at using the Curley property for a combination middle school/high school, but Rossetti said there are some inherent problems with that.Rossetti said the infrastructure doesn’t lend itself to a middle/high school so far on the outskirts of town. The roads in and out wouldn’t be great, public safety would be across the great divide – Route 1 – and there would be wetlands involved in building.If they were to shift to the vicinity of the DPW land, however, Rossetti said there is the possibility of saving money by teaming with the vocational school in the building process.He said not only might officials save in engineering costs, but the school could also share athletic fields and possibly other common areas.”It would give us a fairly large plot,” Rossetti said. “And a vocational school and a public school working together might be sexy enough to attract some state money.”Both Saugus and the vocational school submitted applications to the state’s School Building Assistance Program this year and both were denied funding.Finance Committee member Teri Katsos actually raised the idea of regionalizing the town’s school system with Wakefield during the same finance meeting. While that didn’t seem to spark much concern, the idea of a land swap did raise momentary alarm, but Rossetti said it was just an idea being kicked around and nothing more.