Like many animal owners, over the past twenty-something years, there have been numerous occasions when Dad and the aged & ailing dog/cat/rabbit/guinea pig go out for That Ride --- the ride from which only Dad returns.
Well, I think its time to take The Wing on The Ride....
Somebody recently asked my thoughts on the plans to reconfigure the three K-8's.
Well, I think its time to take The Wing on The Ride....
Somebody recently asked my thoughts on the plans to reconfigure the three K-8's.
I just don't have a horse in this race. Next year, I will have three kids at three different high schools, and (hopefully) a fourth teaching school someplace. No more K-8's.
I've never claimed to be a professional educator, or an expert in child development (just ask my kids!) But, from a management perspective, it makes sense to me to consolidate like operations whenever possible --- to allow the greatest sharing of resources and talent and to ensure maximum consistency of results.
But ... I've been told that kids can't be treated like widgets.
If there is a sound educational argument to be made to structure in one fashion or another, I could be swayed. BUT, if the argument is based on ill-informed hysterical shrieking or rambling dissertations by folks with no professional background or experience in the subject (other than the ability to mix sperm and egg), I tend to change the channel and watch American Idol!
From a Big Picture perspective, the Wing has to go. While I suspect the engineering / consulting reports are exaggerated, there's no disputing it's a grossly inefficient facility that is costly to maintain.
I always argued that we may need those school seats at some point, but given the increased number of seats at Pope John Paul II and Sturgis, the growth in School Choice options, and the generally changing age demographic in this area, that's probably unlikely. Any substantial student growth I the future would likely impact an expanded Upper Cape Tech, or more cost-effective modular additions to the Forestdale or Oakridge.
That being said, I am still leery of adding yet another piece of useless real estate to the Town's portfolio. In a professional environment, I would be promoting an effort to consolidate Town services in a single location and then liquidating the remaining properties to outside buyers -- buyers with money, not the friendly folks looking to help themselves to public property for their own benefit -- or those that confuse "historic" with "old".
What has (not) happened to the Dewey Avenue building is a disgrace.
As I have little confidence that the Town could ever actually coordinate or finance a renovation/consolidation effort, I would strongly support subdividing the parcel, turning the fields over to the Recreation Department and selling the building to a private developer for renovation into apartments, and/or an assisted living facility. Sale proceeds could be used to fund some of the deferred maintenance efforts around town.
Or, we could hire another consultant.
The best argument I've heard for a new Library building is that we need more space to store our Consultants' Reports !!
9 comments:
I’ll bet that the town has already spent $20, $30 or even $50 thousand dollars on various Wing related consultant and engineer studies. And, I know that additional moneys will be spent to study Wing.
Like you, I believe that the town should sell the property to a private developer. This is also what should have been done with Dewey Ave. If the town needs, and could benefit from, new, high tech, well-designed, consolidated office space then a comprehensive plan should be developed and presented to voters for approval.
It’s beyond crazy that town leaders are contemplating repurposing a building that’s been deemed too expensive to repair and maintain for its original and current purpose!
Some of my neighbors will argue that there is some historic value to Wing and Dewey Ave. They’ll suggest that only the town’s ownership and control of these properties will preserve their historic character. They’ll posit that some community good or social purpose will be served by continued public access and ownership. If this line of thought prevails, taxpayers will have to absorb more costs and more taxes as the town grows its inventory of dilapidated, antiquated, unattractive and costly properties.
Knowing what happened on Dewey Ave., I am quite sure that we’ll all be paying for Wing for many years to come.
The Truth Maker would respond to brother Roberts that given the present thought process. We here love dolling out money for more studies and if that one does not say what we are looking for lets do another until it does. Just think of all that time and energy just talking about another study on top of another one is wasted in itself, when one does not look at the last one and find some redeeming words of encouragement that perhaps we do have pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, instead of some rainbows of false hope.
To some old is historic, perhaps it is, but when you look at how well our historic areas are going it is more like hysterical as each endeavor continues to fall into further disrepair.
The school district stated they will save over one million dollars in next years budget, but it will be over a one million dollar loss to our town when the town is handed the keys to the Wing School.
Me thinks that given our present situation in the financial world of big business turning the Wing School over to a private developer that can repurpose this building for every town function now being operated out of other decaying town buildings and sell the other old historical buildings, make a great deal more common sense thing to do.
We could put the Town Clerk, Tax assessors, Tax collector, Natural Resource, Town Planner, all in one place. With room left over for a new fire department and senior center.
We could even include an professional paid economic person that knows what they are doing in working with the town planners office.
Truth Maker:
How much Class A and Class B office space exists today in town that’s unused and unoccupied?
How much would it cost to rent such space for town use and how does that compare to the projected costs of renovating Wing to create office space?
How does the costs of renovating Wing compare against building new, modern office space?
What’s the opportunity cost of not selling / developing Wing? What’s lost? Senior housing? An assisted living facility? How much future tax revenue would be lost too?
We’ll agree to disagree about the value of holding on to the Wing. For me it’s not a Wing, it’s an albatross.
You had me right up until the quip about the library. The numbers prove you wrong there.
It's already set up to be school, so it would be a great opportunity for a charter or even a private school to invest in. The demand for more options and school choice is abundant. Anything to get out of the unionization issues, common core, mediocrity, and crap (for lack of a better term) they teach in the public schools.
How many buildings in Sandwich can this be said about? This mismanagement is easy to do when you are playing with house money
Today in the local paper it is stated that the cost to fix the Wing school for continued education purposes may be close to 50 million dollars. Once again we are seeing what putting off maintence will cost in the end.
The old saying is pay it now or pay it later and we are now looking at what was not done by previous administrator's to determine long range effects, by letting every thing go until it is too late, where it is sadly beyond common sense repair.
History will show that given the present on going process we can expect other town buildings to also follow suit, where and when will it stop? We need to find some offsetting financial aid that assures all public properties will be given its priority when it comes to on going maintence.
Does anyone know what it cost to build the new high school in Plymouth? I have a REALLY hard time thinking we could not knock down the current building and build a new one for less than 50 million!
the cost to fix Wing is related to bringing it up to code for educational purposes. It is amusing to me that it keeps creeping up form the original estimate brought to us by the consultants report in 2010 or 2011, which was 30 million. Got to love the manipulation of political speak. The committee that met with that work had an agenda and that was to prove that we needed to consolidate schools before the new Super got here. Naturally we were already experiencing declining enrollment and knew we were facing 500 empty seats at the HS. I am very entertained at times by the spin about all this. But now most concerned about how fast we are playing monopoly. I tend to agree with Bob and Bob that the property minus the fields (which we need) could be developed into some great over 50 housing or something. It could also provide the parking we need for village activities which are growing and contributing to our tourism economy. Provided the Town Meeting approves the next $75,000 for a re-purposing study, it is conceivable that we could accommodate a senior and recreation center there with some town departments. I suppose it could house all town departments, which I personally think would be excellent. Fire Station, not sure that would work.
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