Three councillors balk at school design funds
Cambridge’s City Council and School Committee occasionally meet and hold roundtables. This joint meeting took place in November. (Photo: Marc Levy)
The delicate work of remaking the school district is delayed again, but while the pauses in February and March were mainly to make sure parents were comfortable with the plans, on Monday it was city councillors who called a halt to the action, saying they didn’t have enough information.
At stake in the City Council meeting was $3 million requested by City Manager Robert W. Healy to begin design work on a city school, starting a cycle of planning and construction that would see three rebuilt, improved campuses opened every two years starting 2014.
The matter was tabled by councillor Denise Simmons, using her “charter right” veto.
While some questions by the three concerned councillors were easily answered — Craig Kelley wondered how $3 million could pay for reconstruction, and was told the money was for design; Ken Reeves asked the difference between rebuilding and renovating — the connection with the district’s Innovation Agenda was deemed too complicated for an immediate vote. The agenda says there will be four schools for middle-schoolers, although the schools will be in buildings shared with some of the district’s existing “elementary” schools, which now house students until they graduate to high school.
“It doesn’t mention the Innovation Agenda. It’s very vague,” Simmons complained of the funds request. “But is not a stand-alone thing, as I understand it. It’s in connection with what we’re going to do around the Innovation Agenda.”
Simmons wanted to wait for a council meeting with the committee next Monday to learn more about how the agenda — the topic of some two dozen meetings, hearings and roundtables before the final vote March 15 — fit in with school construction plans.
Their own agenda
Healy struggled to make clear to Simmons, who has been on the council since 2001 and served as mayor, as well as to Reeves (another former mayor, who has been on the council since 1989) and Kelley (a councillor since 2005) that they were not voting on the $3 million Monday, just moving the matter to a second reading when they could vote. If approved, the money becomes part of the city budget, likely to be voted May 23.
“This is how we have submitted all the capital projects that require bond authorizations and appropriations over the past several years,” Healy told them.
He also found himself in the position of explaining to the councillors what they had told him in the past.
“I know there’s been discussion in the council and the School Committee for several years now that as we completed the War Memorial and Cambridge Rindge & Latin School the next logical need was a look at and work in the elementary schools, and this is the commencement of that,” Healy said. “Independent of academic or educational restructuring, these facilities need work.”
Marjorie Decker said she was confused by her fellow councillors’ hesitation and wondered if it wasn’t a way to “stall” the project in opposition of the Innovation Agenda itself, which was voted in 6-1 by the School Committee — an independent body. Kelley agreed he didn’t like the agenda; he was a frequent presence at committee meetings and was involved in rallying opposition to it, even going so far as getting embroiled in a possible move to oust supportive committee members in the November elections. He later apologized to the committee.
But on Monday he urged district officials, through the manager, “don’t put us in the awkward place of voting on stuff like this without really understanding anything about it.”
Projecting the projects
As mayor, David Maher runs the council and School Committee, and was able to give a look ahead at the recommendation he expected the committee to hear Tuesday at its regular meeting: that the school on Putnam Avenue, now the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Amigos schools, would be the first to be renovated; the King Open School, on Cambridge Street, would be second; the John M. Tobin School, on Vassal Lane, would be third; and that there would be minor alterations to the Andrew Peabody School on Rindge Avenue to accommodate its reconfiguration to host one of the “upper” schools. The Graham & Parks School, on Linnaean Street, is also in need of an update and would likely be fourth in line for a major overhaul.
Without an architect’s assessment, though, “we’re completely flying by the seat of our pants,” Maher said, “as to whether we can accomplish what we want in these buildings in their current structure or if it makes more sense to begin again.”
It’s been a paradox about the agenda since Superintendent Jeffrey Young introduced it: He wanted the community to agree on the concept and flesh out the details together, while many in the community insisted on knowing the details of the plan before they agreed to it. Now councillors are being asked to fund what some say they don’t understand, when their funds are needed to gather details for the plan.
Well two things are obvious from this article:
First, Mayor Maher, who although he did a very fine job of leading the School Committee and many, many residents through a difficult, messy, and democratic process to pass the Innovation Agenda; did not make time to educate City Council on what should have been an easy vote.
Secondly: It also shows an embarrassing lack of preparation on the part of the three councillors mentioned. If they did not understand what they were being asked to vote on at this late date, then shame on them.
But sometimes democracy in action is actually inaction.
I just hope they don’t continue to hold up a plan that many voters were told would be moving forward by now.
Hawkeye, It is much more likely that these three know at least as much and perhaps more than others on the council and actually wanted details. I base this on years of watching these folks and seeing who has done their homework.
Jehawkeye, did you read what the councillors were asked to vote on? That might explain why they didn’t immediately see it as the crystal clear thing you say it is: “12. Transmitting communication from Robert W. Healy, City Manager, relative to an order requesting the appropriation and authorization to borrow $3,000,000 to provide funds for the architectural design and construction of an elementary school to be either rebuilt or renovated as part of the multi-year Elementary School Rebuilding Program.
Charter Right – Simmons
Agenda Item No. 12A May 2, 2011
ORDERED: That $3,000,000 is appropriated for the purpose of financing the architectural design and construction of an elementary school project to be rebuilt or renovated as part of the multi-year Elementary School Rebuilding Program; and to meet this appropriation the Treasurer with the approval of the City Manager is authorized to borrow $3,000,000 under Chapter 44 of the General Laws or any other enabling authority.”
I’ve heard that this is intended to pay for architects to look at all twelve elementary school buildings (including the one on Upton Street that is going back into service in the 2012-2013 school year) and evaluate them in order to recommend what work each one needs. Had it said that, I can’t imagine that anyone would have had any objection whatsoever. This just refers to “architectural design and construction” of “an elementary school”, in the original formulation, or “an elementary school project”, in what I gather was substituted language, “to be rebuilt or renovated”, with no indication of which school or what sort of work. There is no way on earth that $3,000,000 will pay for rebuilding or renovating a school.
Please share with us your vast inside knowledge of what this really meant, and make sure you connect that real meaning with the actual words that were supposed to convey it.
This was actually very straight forward. The city manager explained that he was requesting 3 million to hire a firm to evaluate the first building to be renovated or rebuilt and to design the plan. Nothing more, nothing less. It was not for all 12 buildings or it would have said that. This vote was also to move the request on to a second reading, so nothing was going to be decided that night. They could have voted it, kept the process moving and received more information before the final vote. No matter how you feel about the IA, these buildings need to be renovated. The City Council’s role in school affairs is financial. If someone had asked, “why 3 million? Can’t we get a firm for cheaper?” That would have been a completely appropriate question and well within their perview. But to hold this up because they have questions about the IA or are unhappy with the SC vote, is out of bounds.
For Heather and Mark, when Councilor Toomey injected himself in SC affairs last year(which by the way, had to do with the budget, so he had a right to ask questions), you guys were all over him. How about a little consistency here?
No matter how you feel about Coucilor Decker, she took a lot of heat a few months back for saying that city councilors would try to sabotage the SC vote, I hope what happened Monday isn’t an indication that she was right.
We need to move forward. We need to pull together as so many school communities are and get this entire plan moving.
Marc McGovern
School Committee
Marc, you’ll have to refresh my memory about my saying anything about Councillor Toomey and School Committee affairs last year. I’ve had plenty to say about him over the years, both good and bad, but I don’t remember that part.
Is there some reason that the request couldn’t have said what you say it meant? “[A]n elementary school project to be rebuilt or renovated” is a far cry from “evaluat[ing] the first building to be renovated or rebuilt and . . . design[ing] the plan.” That would likely have prompted some questions and then been passed to a second reading.
As far as I can tell from the discussion tonight, no one is trying to sabotage anything; they actually wanted to know what the money was for, and, like me, they didn’t find the wording helpful in figuring that out. In fact, Councillor Toomey pointed out that the School Committee didn’t even vote to designate a school until Tuesday, the day after the City Council meeting.
I understand that the City Council votes on plenty of vague things. However, I think they should be commended when they actually ask questions and insist on knowing what they’re voting on. I want to encourage that kind of behavior so that it becomes the norm instead of the exception.
It may be that I don’t understand the process well enough. Maybe votes to move things to second readings should just be pro forma unanimous yeses, like referring zoning petitions to the Ordinance Committee and the Planning Board, with the actual questions, if any, postponed until the second reading. Were that the case, however, I’d suggest that the councillor casting the most aspersions perhaps shouldn’t have exercised her charter right on one of the other bond requests.
I understand that it’s a popular sport to demonize Councillor Kelley; he’s just not one of the guys. He does his homework, asks questions and votes his conscience. He’s willing to admit it when he’s wrong. He’s not on the distribution list for big developers and their allies. As I said, he’s just not one of the guys.
However, he wasn’t the only person with questions. By my count, most of the councillors at tonight’s meeting were asking what this money was for. Once they were satisfied that they knew what they were voting on, they passed it unanimously to a second reading. That’s how this ought to work, and the only shame is how rare that is.