Oct. 7 -- Ridgefield First Selectman Rudy Marconi confirmed today
that preliminary site preparation work has begun on the Town's new middle
school. "The first ground has been broken, and we're doing everything
possible to keep this much-needed school project moving forward," said
Marconi.
The preliminary work under way is an archeological survey of the site. Completing this survey now will allow the general contractor to avoid a potentially expensive and time-consuming step in building the new facility. The visible evidence of the survey is the clearing of about an acre of the site (see photo) which will permit the archeological assessment to go forward.
Trees were cleared from the area, and fed into a huge wood chipper (see
photo). The chipper turns whole trees into wood chips and dumps them into
waiting trucks to be removed from the area. The giant chipper, parked near
the edge of the Ridgefield High School tennis courts, showed up last week
and was a source of interest and comment by many high school students and
faculty.
"While this is just a small step on the way to the new middle school," said the First Selectman, "it's reassuring to see some confirming physical evidence that we really are on track to build the school." When Marconi was elected First Selectman in November 1999, he inherited a school construction Gordian Knot, with numerous factions fighting for their own special approach to solving the school capacity problem. Several years of research, site selection committees, and wrangling by boards and commissions, had resulted in a deadlock, with no progress toward building school classrooms. One consequence of the delay is that the current East Ridge Middle School is in a near-crisis due to overcrowding.
The new First Selectmen pioneered the use of a public policy "Summit" to bring all sides together to debate their differences, make necessary compromises, and agree on a plan to go forward. In December, Marconi summoned dozens of public officials to a so-called "Sewer Summit" to solve the problem of how to get sewer lines to the proposed middle school. The summit succeeded, a solution was agreed to, and the project has been moving forward since then.
The First Selectman is again using this approach to drive through to an agreement on adding capacity to the Town's elementary school system. A "School Summit" to be held Sunday, Oct. 8, will bring all the boards, commissions, and interest groups together in the High School cafeteria to hear all the issues and to decide on the best solution.
"Education is one of the most important issues to Ridgefielders," said Marconi; "It's critical to get everyone together in one place, at one time, to talk, debate, and finally agree on the best solution for the town. We don't have time for a 'business as usual' approach. We need this summit meeting to get everyone together to agree on a solution, and get moving toward adding elementary classrooms."
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