MARLBORO – The Marlboro K-8 School District Board of Education will not place a construction referendum before voters on Jan. 26.
At a meeting on Nov. 24, a resolution that proposed placing a $26.3 million capital improvements referendum on the ballot on Jan. 26 was defeated in a 6-3 vote.
Board Vice President Victoria Dean and board members Dara Enny, Jian Kao, Joanne Liu-Rudel, Craig Marshall and BonnieSue Rosenwald voted no.
Board President Michael Lilonsky and board members Debbie Mattos and Robyn Wolfe voted yes.
“I still feel strongly that any sitting board should have to live with the duration of the process,” Marshall said. “We have two new board members coming in January who were endorsed by the mayor. I feel these repairs are desperately needed for the safety of our students.
“However, (a Nov. 3) referendum was previously voted down by a unanimous decision for the most part and we can sit here all night and guess why it was voted down. The reality is we don’t know.
“A whole board as a new board should make (a decision) in January. I feel these two new members should be able to come in and be able to run with it,” Marshall said.
On Nov. 3, voters soundly rejected a $46.5 million referendum that proposed the construction of new classrooms at the David C. Abbott Early Learning Center in order to accommodate full-day kindergarten and significant capital improvements at other schools in the district.
The resolution that failed to gain the board’s support on Nov. 24 sought only to proceed with the capital improvements at a cost of $26.3 million.
“I think the new board coming in should be the board going forward,” said Rosenwald, whose term will end on Dec. 31. “Hearing (the business administrator) say that having another architect look at what (previous) architects (examined in the schools) and reviewing that would only cost $5,000 on a $26.3 million referendum is money well spent. There are things in the (capital improvements) referendum that are not needed at this moment. I will let the new board take a hard look at that and ponder how to go forward with that.”
“The community voted a certain way (on Nov. 3) and I think we need to look again as to why the community voted no and take their opinion into account,” Enny said. “We need to see if we can come up with a better solution and see that there is a different way to possibly come up with a different solution and there may not be, this may be the best solution and January is just too soon to do so.
“We do have new board members, maybe they will have a better solution and maybe a second opinion on the work that needs to be done would be helpful and it gives everyone a chance to re-examine it,” Enny said.
Dean said she agreed with Marshall and Rosenwald that the new board as a whole should examine the plan.
“Things do need to be replaced, but this seems like a scare tactic,” Dean added. “They are (priority projects) based on the study (of the schools’ infrastructure), but do they have to be done this minute? Could the boilers have been done little by little? We should commend the workers who have been able to keep these boilers working and keep them maintained for the past 50 years.”
Liu-Rudel said the new board members should be able to examine the plans and make their own suggestions.
During a Nov. 12 meeting, board members said Jan. 26 or March 8 might be dates when a referendum proposing the capital improvements could be placed before voters.
When the agenda for the Nov. 24 meeting was published, the resolution proposing a Jan. 26 referendum for the capital improvements was included. That resolution was defeated.
If the board members decide they want to hold a March 8 referendum, a decision must be filed by Jan. 8. If the board does not hold a referendum in March, the next possible date for a referendum would be September.
The referendum resolution that was rejected by the board on Nov. 24 called for $26.3 million in capital improvements, including $6.16 million at the Marlboro Middle School, $3.93 million at the Defino Central Elementary School, $2.61 million at the Dugan Elementary School, $4.9 million at the Asher Holmes Elementary School, $4.73 million at the Marlboro Elementary School and $3.97 million at the Robertsville Elementary School.
The referendum question indicated that the district would have received 40 percent of the total cost of the projects in state aid.
On the topic of full-day kindergarten, Superintendent of Schools Eric Hibbs said a plan could be developed to initiate full-day kindergarten by using existing space in the schools, such as computer labs and classrooms. He said if such a plan is feasible, the earliest it would go into effect would be for the 2017-18 school year.
— Contact Peter Elacqua at pelacqua@gmnews.com
