Sending It Back To The Future! The Infamous $19K Vote Returns

It was déjà vu all over again at the March 2 Board of Selectmen meeting when three members of the board voted to approve spending $19,000 on conceptual plans for a new high school – and two did not.

The result of the motion (First Selectman William Fritz and members Dolly Mezzetti and Thomas Vicino voted to approve; and members Carol Walter and Raymond Apel voted against) was the same vote at their Jan. 27 meeting. At that time, it was forwarded to the finance board as it will be yet again this time.

When the finance board received the request Feb. 22, the motion resulted in a tie vote. Because the vote was a tie, the motion to approve the funds was defeated. At that Feb. 22 meeting, members of the finance board who approved the appropriation included Bradford Sullivan (chairman), Stephen Lillquist, and Patricia Ames. Opposing the spending were Ona Nejdl, Dennis Donovan and Douglas Traynor (alternate member, seated for Thomas Hollinger).

Member Miner Vincent, an alternate, was present at the meeting but was not seated to vote. Member Thomas Hollinger was absent.

This request for $19,000 for conceptual plans came as a result of a Jan. 20 meeting whereby the Morgan School Building Committee recommended replacing the old high school with a new building – not renovating it. The report by the Morgan Building Committee including the Jan. 20 presentation and the Gilbane Construction Company’s facility report are available on the town’s website at www.clintonct.org.

The building committee is composed of Gerald Vece, Jr. (chairman), Dennis Donovan, David Townsend, Sally Heffernan, Peter Nye, Jeff Stevens, and Fritz as an ex officio member.

At the selectmen’s second vote, member Carol Walter was adamant that the board could not vote again on the same motion – meaning the same amount and the same request.

First Selectman Willie Fritz disagreed and said as policy it can be sent back as a new request to the finance board as has been done on occasion in the past.

“The question to the finance board was do we have $19,000 and where does it come from?” said Fritz. “That is the job of the finance board. Since we have $6.3 million in reserves, we have the money.”

Finance board member Douglas Traynor, who attended the March 2 BOS meeting, said he believed the Morgan Building Committee didn’t have the authority or standing to request the money.

Fritz said the request came in through the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools and was proper.

Chairman of the Morgan School Building Committee Gerald Vece, Jr. said he hopes the Board of Finance will reconsider their first vote.

“I hope they vote on whether the town has the ability to pay and not whether the town needs a new high school or not,” he said.

The money, if approved by the Board of Finance, will head to a public vote. If approved at that time, the money is slated to be used to pay an architectural firm to draw up conceptual plans for a proposed new high school.

As Vece explained, conceptual plans would show the community exactly how many classrooms there would be in the new building, the size of the classrooms, what they would look like, the size of the auditorium and whether or not there would be one, two, or more gymnasiums.

“The plans would give us a more definitive price, too,” he said, noting that the cost of $50 million ($29 million after a state reimbursement of $21 million) is based on general square footage formulas.