Submitted by Karen Fassuliotis
Our Town has learned by long and real experience that the best way to plan major capital projects like renovating schools is three steps – a project feasibility with preliminary budget, then a complete architecture and engineering plan with comprehensive budgets, and finally construction with contingency plans and contingency budgets. Every time we have tried to “shortcut” these steps, projects have been delayed, over-budget and improperly built frequently tied up after the fact in litigation. Yet, now we have some politically ambitious people trying to score points by bypassing this tried and true process and vilifying anyone saying “wait a minute, let’s do what has always worked”.
As an example, our Town Charter (the constitution and law of Greenwich) requires that a school building project obtain municipal improvement (MI) before construction money can be approved. What is a MI? A MI is a vetting, review and approval by all land use agencies including Planning & Zoning and Wetlands and the non-partisan town legislature, the Representative Town Meeting. The purpose of these reviews is to give all stakeholders, including the general public, and not just the motivated proponents, an opportunity to be heard and considered before any project is rammed through. Municipal Improvement is the embodiment of democracy in action.
So, what just happened regarding Old Greenwich School? The Board of Education and their parent-led Building Committee, supported by election motivated Democrats, decided to try to compress all these reviews and approvals into one month and bully the Finance Board into approving $41 million without a MI and required reviews by all the appropriate town agencies or elected legislature. This is not how proper capital projects planning nor execution is done.
The Democrats, particularly former BOE Chairs Leslie Moriarty and Laura Erickson, know the process. The Board of Education (BOE) knows the process. The Superintendent knows the process. They are simply playing politics and want you to believe that the Republicans are delaying the project when they know it is not true.
These people, particularly BOE Chairman Joe Kelly and Superintendent Toni Jones, need to stop these political machinations that divide our community and undermine support for Greenwich Public Schools.
The reality is that the Old Greenwich Building Committee (OGBC) has funding to proceed all the way to construction drawings. Greenwich Public Schools also has additional monies that were appropriated to address the most urgent ADA issues immediately. The OGBC can proceed with their work to first get municipal improvement and to get their design through the land use agencies. This process is not a short one and the project would likely be ready for full funding late in 2024 despite what is being asserted.
The BET was given less than 48 hours to review over 200 pages of documents and to render an approval of almost $41 million in that time. That is the time the BET had after the BOE rubber stamped the proposal with no debate or discussion.
The project specifications include a build of a 7,261 square foot, one story addition of 4 classrooms, roughly the size of a large house, the installation of an elevator and the revelation that “the extent of the proposed renovations within the existing building are unknown at this time…..”
While a renovation costing approximately $20 million made sense to fund, now that the cost has ballooned to $41 (or close to $50 million by the time the added expenditures such as replacement of windows and a roof are spent in additional years), the BOE should be having the conversation about building a school that addresses climate resiliency, which the proposed plan does not address. Old Greenwich School is in a FEMA flood plain. So, while the Chair of the Building Committee, James Waters, has stated that the renovation plan will allow the building to be functional for another 100 years, if climate resiliency is not addressed it may well be a building that is underwater, instead of being a functional school.
The BOE has never proposed a renovation project without considering the cost of a new building and now that the cost has ballooned to $41 million (or close to $50 million by the time other expenditures are added) they should be having that discussion. It’s great that the Old Greenwich school community has asked the town to retain the facade of the Old Greenwich School. But the iconic nature of the school is due largely, in part, to the grand staircase, which will not be a part of the school if it is renovated. And the school, itself, has only one section that was built in 1902.
The other sections were added later and contributes to the hodgepodge of classrooms that currently exist. The BOE, not the BET, should be looking at the project and having an honest discussion with the Greenwich community as to the best option going forward.
Republicans are fully committed to the Old Greenwich School project. But instead of a fire drill to meet a deadline for state funding that is ten days away the BOE should be responsible fiscal stewards and have a real conversation on what should be built, or, in the alternative, continue their work and return to the BET once a municipal improvement is obtained and the costs are more fully known.
So don’t be fooled by the political noise that will be coming in the months ahead. Republicans on the BET have not delayed this project. Republicans are simply continuing the more than 100-year legacy of prudent and effective leadership that has made Greenwich one of the most desirable communities in the country if not the world.
Karen Fassuliotis is a Republican member of the Board of Estimate and Taxation. She served on the Representative Town Meeting and has been awarded the Greenwich Probate Court Pro-Bono Award numerous times.