Somehow this meeting just kind of snuck in here, I guess I just been drinking the tea instead of reading the leaves, Maybe they just want me to drink the Kool-aid.
A School Building Opportunity Committee meeting will be held on Saturday, February 23rd at 10am. The location is the Tracy Elementary School, 35 Walnut St.
I guess there was no AGENDA for the meeting.
ReplyDeleteThis is the committee that the Mayor was asked to form a few months back after I had raised concerns that we need to expedite the replacement of some of our schools. The group is made up of some SC members, a few Councilors, some of the Legislative delegation, the ISD Director and a parent from Pickering, Tracy and Cobbet. I have been trying to get the meetings together and it was suggested that the meetings be posted so that there are no open meeting violations. I didn’t realize this when I put the Pickering meeting together. There is no conspiracy to conceal the meetings, I thought that since no votes were being taken and we were just talking and walking around the buildings it really wasn’t a public meeting. As I stated at the School Committee meeting when this was discussed, I wanted this group to tour Pickering, Cobbet and Tracy so that we could all see the conditions of these schools. The hope is that we can include all three of these schools on the Statement of Interest to the MSBA and use this diverse group now armed with in depth knowledge of the condition of these schools, to help lobby for their replacement. Marshall is in the pipe and will be replaced, pending voter bond approval. From beginning to end, Marshall will have taken eight years from discussion to putting kids in the new building. We cannot afford to take this much time to replace the other three schools one at a time.
ReplyDeleteNot that I am trying to exclude anyone, I am hoping that only members of the group attend tomorrow. If we have a bunch of people there, we really will not be able to accomplish much in the way of going through the school and documenting what needs to be done if there is a big group oif people in the building. My hope is that once we have gone through all of the schools, we will give some sort of a presentation to the School Committee and the City Council so that everyone will get on board and help us get these schools replaced. I don’t think that anyone can argue that these three schools in addition to Marshall are the worst in the city. If building a new school is going to take eight years to take from discussion to completion, it will take over thirty years to replace the worst of our schools. That is nuts.
Again, I have been the person that has put these meetings together and I appreciate all those that have offered to participate with the group. If there is anyone to blame for how this group is functioning, it falls on me. I am asking people to please bear with us, allow us to get this done and hopefully we can accomplish our goals. We will definitely keep everyone in the loop once we have gone through all three buildings.
Sorry that this response is so long.
I have NO DOUBT about the sincerity of your intentions or the need for a slim fact finding mission, But it doesn't matter how pretty the picture is if you don't FRAME it well,
DeleteSomeone other than you should have known more about political carpentry.