Sept. 23 -- 250 Ridgefielders turned out tonight to learn the facts about the proposed new intermediate school. Instead they were subjected to an endless series of speeches by the small but vocal group which is adamantly opposed to the currently proposed site; many say this group of naysayers would be opposed to any new school on any site. Republican First Selectman Abe Morelli seemed unwilling or unable to manage the hearing, and dozens of townspeople walked out in disgust as it became clear that the proceedings would be dominated by the same small group of people making the same arguments over and over. A careful listener, however, did find some solid information offered over the course of a very long evening (Photo, right: townspeople gathered in the Veterans Park School autditorium)
The meeting, which lasted until 10:30 PM, opened with a brief greeting from First Selectman
Morelli. Ridgefield's new school superintendent, Dr. Ralph Wallace, spoke first about the new school. Apparently his
concern was to answer, once and for all, the inquiries about the need in
the town for the new school.
He presented a series of slides showing
that, if nothing changes, the town will have a need for 32 more
classrooms by the year 2006. He also showed that our class sizes are
slightly larger than the average of the other school systems in our peer
group, and finally discussed how they had computed the school will open
with 850 kids in the first year, rise to a maximum of 946 kids, and have
about a 7% buffer for future growth or errors in the forecasts. Most
importantly, he demonstrated that the town's forecasts for the number of
students in the system has been 99.27% correct -- "a very professional
result" he called it. (Photo, left: several slide presentations were used to brief townspeople on the details of the school project)
Gil Wheless, principal of the firm which is the project's landscape achitect, spoke on the terrain and land utilization. He described how the 58 acre plot has 30 acres of unbuildable space (water and inaccessible land), for a total of 28 acres of firm land. The 100-year flood plain removes another four acres, so there are 24 acres of buildable land. Zoning further reduces the space to 8 acres (15% of the area), and then he described how the school footprint and roadways achieve a 14.9% footprint. All combined, including porous surfaces such as the playing fields, the proposed middle school and the hypothesized elementary school will utilize 49.6% of the 58 acres. This layout is less dense than the housing project proposed by the Eppoliti family when they owned the land and which was approved by the Town's Zoning Board.
The architects then discussed the school design. It is currently planned
to be 60 classrooms to house 1,100 students. This works out to 181,000
square feet, or about 32,000 square feet over Connecticut's "typical"
intermediate school. However, as Dr. Wallace pointed out, if you look at
all of the schools built recently in the entire state, only one (1!) was
below the recommended size. Indeed, if you add up all of the recommended
programs proposed by the State Board of Ed, you cannot build a school and
stay within their hypothetical 149 square feet per student. So while 181,000 square feet may be generous, it is not out of line with the
experiences of other towns. (Photo, right: Democratic school board member Bob Opotzner [r.] listened carefully to the presentations)
Dr. Wallace then spoke about traffic and safety issues. Simply put, he said we "have to be smart about this." Many schools, he noted, are built on busy streets; that's where towns build them because busy streets deliver minimum drive times. He was confident that by re-engineering the Coops Hill/Farmingville Road/Rt 35 intersection, and with a traffic light and turning lanes, congestion could be minimized.
Mr. Morelli spoke on public utilities. Some late-breaking news, he said, was that the Bridgeport Hydraulic Company, the town's water company, was having to back away from their assurances they would have municipal water to the school site in the year 2000. Apparently, the State Health Dept. has crossed swords with the State Dept. of Environmental Protection. The D.E.P. is planning on forcing BHC to get a "diversion permit" to move water from the Housatonic River basin -- which is where BHC ownes reservoirs -- to the Norwalk River water basin, which is where Ridgefield sits. The conflict between the two bodies will make the process a prolonged one, and it is unlikely they will finish their pipeline until the year 2003.
Mr. Morelli then pointed out that the site sits on an aquifer quite suited to wells, and with proper planning wells could meet the schools' demands. Indeed, the school may be able to sell water back to BHC. Four of the town's six schools are on wells, and it is relatively inexpensive to test for the well water before committing to further site development.
The costs and tax implications were discussed next by Mike Rizzo, of
Caldwell and Walsh, the construction managers. The proposed school will
cost about $27 million to build, and about $6 million for site
development and other work, plus $7 million to acquire the land. This
totals to about $40 million. The state will refund about $7 million of
this total amount. For a home of $300,000, this school will increase the
tax burden about $318 annually. Mr. Rizzo considered this
to be a maximum, worst-case number, and the actual costs were expected to
be below this level. (Photo, left: Mike Rizzo explains the projected costs of the school)
At this point, the meeting was opened to questions, and a number of
interesting questions were asked. But after a while, a group of spoilers
took the floor -- John Delutio, Bill Allen, Joseph Heyman, and others --
and Mr. Morelli was either unable or unwilling to control their
speech-making. At one point, the rest of the audience was yelling " Sit
down!" to one speaker who would not give up his argument. Several newcomers to Ridgefield rose to ask why this small group was so opposed to building a school in what seems to be the best-suited site.
Others stated that building the new school was critical to maintaining Ridgefield's excellent educaitonal system, which is one of its most important assets --- and incidentally key to the excellent property values here. (Photo, right: a resident asks a question about the proposed new school)
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