To the editor:
I was strongly opposed to the first new school proposal back in 2014. I did not think I could be more strongly opposed to another one, but I am.
All of the reasons the first proposal got hammered by a two-to-one margin are still basically present in the next-generation version.
But it does not end there. The proposal’s size and open space will permanently alter the middle of the town. The building area is huge compared to Stanley School and will eat up a large expanse of additional open land.
The operating costs and estimates for busing from farther parts of town have been ignored. They will be expensive and a fixed annual cost for the life of the building. There is just no space for this school and the open space we would need for all of the kids. This was raised as a big issue for the original proposal and, like many other issues, it remains the same for this proposal.
The school design is going to grossly alter the entire layout of the Stanley School neighborhood.
Kids need time and space to run around and it won’t work. The land structure of Swampscott is just not amenable to these types of large projects. We have a town that is 3.1 square miles with an 18-hole golf course, MBTA tracks, and a border with the Atlantic Ocean.
The space limitations are severe, to say the least. Look at the issues that surround the Rail Trail even after the project was approved. It is a very instructive example of what is likely to happen but on a much smaller scale. The design is entirely out of whack with this reality.
The school project cost means the taxpayers will be on the hook for almost $70 million. The 2014 version was going to cost us almost $40 million, so this is not an improvement. The town and “yes” proponents keep harping on the median tax bill being about $300 a year. How many years is that? They don’t say. These usually parallel the warrant. That would be 30 years. So a buck a day for 365 days for maybe 20-30 years. That’s a lot. Why aren’t they talking about the “average” tax bill increase? The average tax bill will be higher than the median tax cost that the town and proponents keep rolling out. The median means half the values will be less and half will be more than the median house value.
But the median is not the average. House values in Swampscott below the median skew closer to it and house values above the median skew farther away from it due to higher house values in town.
This means the average value is higher than the median value, hence the average tax increase will be higher than the median tax increase. The town knows this. Both of these numbers should have been presented.
Mark my words, the people in this town will get slammed with massive tax increases with a middle-school plan that will be rolled out as soon as the ribbons are cut for the Godzilla Consolidated Elementary.
Out of all the statements from the “yes” campaign and the town that strains credulity, traffic might be the biggest whopper of them all. Taking land from a church is repellant and would do nothing. The middle-school traffic situation is bad and there is no solution. Adding a net 400-600 more kids into the area will be a disaster.
The traffic problem, just like for the middle school, will not be a bug that can be fixed. It will be a permanent feature of any new school and will be with the neighborhood for decades.
People have mentioned staggered release. That is another bad idea. Releases would have to be spaced at least 20 minutes apart for it to be effective in managing traffic flow. That means if you have two kids at the school at different release times, it will be a five-minute drive to the school, five minutes to wait for the first release, 20 minutes to wait for the second release, and five minutes to get home. That is 35 minutes a day or almost three hours a week just to pick up your kids, not even to drop them off.
This is simple math, but you will not hear it from any of the “yes” people. We all know every traffic study the town has wasted our money on always supports the conclusion that it won’t be a big deal.
Even if you’re a “yes” person, I think you probably realize this is bunk.
Where are the Stanley students going to go during the demolition and construction phase? My son is going to be put in a box and placed in the middle-school parking lot, according to the plan. This is on top of more than a year of remote “learning.”
Are you kidding me? Some of the people who this will affect will take their kids out, pay a temporary “private-school tax” and maybe come back when it is done.
Some will also try to switch schools. The town knows this and could care less. And why should just Stanley kids be affected? Is that equitable? Why don’t we have a lottery where some kids from all the three schools get put in a box and some Stanley kids get those spots in the other two schools? That’s more equitable, if you ask me.
This is not a “twin” elementary school. That is an absurd analogy. It is one structure. All students are housed in a single building. Do we call the middle school a “twin” school because the fifth grade is in a separate wing? We do not. This is a specific phrase used to manipulate perception. Please see it for what it is.
The “equitable” argument is without any merit. Hadley is a Level-One school and Stanley is not. Where is the association between the differences in the schools for whatever equity measurement those percentages represent? It is not as if Stanley is some state-of-the-art facility that my kids get to attend and others don’t.
We should focus our efforts on the middle school since it checks so many boxes right out of the gate. It has almost never been brought up. It needs to be renovated or rebuilt. It is on existing land so the town doesn’t have to execute a Viking raid on private property or destroy open space. It is a “consolidated” school already, so anything done to it benefits the whole town just like those annoying “yes” signs state.
Most of all, it covers a more important time in the lives of students in terms of learning, educational content, preparation for high school, and social adjustment to early adulthood.
The middle school is more important and a higher priority than the elementary schools. We would not be kicking the can down the road as the “yes” campaign keeps harping on.
We are a small town with a small budget. We have to choose priorities wisely. The town does not have a good track record with this. Town officials admit as much when they say we need to start planning for the middle school. The taxes we would be hit with in a short period of time will be crippling.
We have time and need to do this right. The “yes” campaign says this is the right plan and we can’t keep delaying. They say the state might not give us money, which makes zero sense.
The state does not shell out any cash until a plan is approved and implemented. If we have to go to them again then that is what we do, just like we did this time and last time. This is a red herring. The ridiculous number of $80 million just to fix Hadley is laughable. We all know we can spend far less and do some key renovations to all three schools while addressing the middle school. The town has no credibility with me on any of this. In my 2014 letter, I called them out for how they changed the date for the Town Meeting vote to fall after the deadline to put the question on the ballot.
This was a deceptive way to get it on the ballot regardless of how Town Meeting voted — and they did not achieve the two-thirds vote necessary. The ballot question never should have made it out for a vote in the first place.
Why was there never a reckoning for this behavior? Now we should trust the town on everything they say here? I don’t think so. This might be the biggest red flag of all. If approved, this mistake will outlive most of the voters in this town. Think about that. This proposal should be voted down.
Damon R. Demady
Blodgett Avenue
