{"id":11338,"date":"2024-02-21T08:37:39","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T08:37:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"Concord-Concerned-Citizens-group-middle-school-petition-54101557\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=11338","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Concerned citizens\u2019 group petitions for school board to rescind middle school vote"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a>
The Concord School Board looks up at the two site plans for the Rundlett Middle School at the opening of the meeting on Wednesday, December 6, 2023. The board voted to build the new school on the Broken Ground School site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Jeff Wells wants the Concord School Board to go back to the drawing board on their $176 million plans to build a new middle school on the city\u2019s east side. And he\u2019s not alone.<\/p>\n

Along with a dozen other residents known as\u00a0Concerned Citizens for Concord,\u00a0Wells is calling for the school board to rescind their December vote to approve a new building\u00a0near the Broken Ground and Mill Brook schools.<\/p>\n

Without firm cost estimates, the current multi-million dollar project was hastily approved by a small number of board members who hold a great deal of power in the city, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very, very concerned that this is near impossible,\u201d he said. \u201cThe city can\u2019t afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The origin of the group stems from several members testifying at recent school board meetings about cost concerns regarding the $176 million price tag of the proposed project.<\/p>\n

Now, they\u2019ve come together with a more narrow multi-step mission. First, have the school board rescind their December vote. Under Robert\u2019s Rules of Order, a motion to rescind can be made at a meeting, as long as no irrevocable actions have been made \u2013 like cutting a check or breaking ground on construction.<\/p>\n

To call for this, the group is circulating an online petition<\/a> on Change.org. Prior to the city council\u2019s December discussion on the Beaver Meadow golf course clubhouse renovations, Bob Maccini, a Concerned Citizens group member, did the same. That petition garnered 568 signatures.<\/p>\n

Similar to the Beaver Meadow petition, the goal is not to eliminate a new middle school in its entirety, said Wells. Instead, it\u2019s to hit pause on the process and provide more transparency with firm costs and public input considered.<\/p>\n

The petition states that reconsidering the vote will not impact state-building aid awards. Concord is set to apply for assistance in the next fiscal year. It also notes that two school board members who voted in favor of Broken Ground are no longer on the board, and that the decision contradicted the \u201cpublicly expressed majority opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

That in itself merits a redo, said Wells.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were comparing nothing to nothing. They didn\u2019t have an actual cost. They didn\u2019t have a completed traffic study at either site. They didn\u2019t have the cost of remediation. We need a true comparison, the pros and cons of each, and comparisons of costs itemized,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re talking about spending $175 million, it\u2019s mind-boggling.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Charlie Russell, a longtime Concord resident and attorney, took to the microphone at the Dec. 11 city council meeting, he had several costs he wanted to discuss regarding the golf clubhouse.<\/p>\n

To piece together his numbers and project timeline, Russell used the state\u2019s Right-to-Know law to request documents and reports from council members. He now wants to apply the same level of watchdog detail to the middle school.<\/p>\n

And that involves breaking down the middle school proposal piece by piece. Plans currently include a 900-seat auditorium for the school, but after research into surrounding school districts, like Nashua \u2013 that\u2019s a superfluous addition in many of the schools.<\/p>\n

Line-by-line scrutiny will allow taxpayers to track the overall costs of the project \u2013 and in turn suggest cuts to bring the price tag down.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s not make these decisions that are irreversible and supposedly irreversible down the line,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The next order of business would be to address the power of the board members. Concord is the only district in the state that has an autonomous school board \u2013 meaning board actions require no approval from a secondary body.<\/p>\n

Wells hopes that taxpayers would have a larger stake in decisions, whether that be a vote on project bonds or other input, aside from electing members.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, if they come up with another project for over $500 million, guess what, you don\u2019t proceed until the voters agree to that,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s got to be a clear definition of what the project is, which there hasn\u2019t been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Russell sees parallels between a proposal to build a new Whittier Tech regional school in Haverhill, Mass. The project would have cost over $440 million, with eleven towns sending students.<\/p>\n

But the glaring difference is the public input. Residents voted on the Whittier proposal in January \u2013 with 10 out of the 11 towns rejecting the plan \u2013 bringing it to a standstill.<\/p>\n

In Concord, there is a joint committee between city council and school board members. However, that group has not met in recent months.<\/p>\n

Now with public input, the Concerned Citizens group hopes to bring to light genuine questions about costs and needs in the district, while balancing taxpayer concerns.<\/p>\n

The group plans to launch a website in the coming days and continue to meet to develop action items and public demonstrations. While state legislatures and school board members will meet at Concord High School at 7:30 a.m. to talk about state building aid, Concerned Citizens for Concord plans to be outside the school distributing their petition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrowing money out to build a nice shiny facility doesn\u2019t mean your test scores and your achievement levels are going to increase,\u201d said Russell. \u201cIt\u2019s not an anti-school group. It\u2019s a \u2018what can we do right?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff Wells wants the Concord School Board to go back to the drawing board on their $176 million plans to build a new middle school on the city\u2019s east side. And he\u2019s not alone.Along with a dozen other residents known as\u00a0Concerned Citizens for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":11339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=427]Michaela Towfighi[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[504,12],"tags":[94,399,24,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[509],"class_list":["post-11338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-centerpiece-2-cm","category-town-city-government","tag-concord-nh","tag-education","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/42972084-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11340,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11338\/revisions\/11340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11338"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=11338"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=11338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}