By Rebecca Shalomoff
The seniors said they are angry the board would propose a multi-million dollar bond at this time when the American people face economic hardships, particularly Nassau County residents who have to worry about increasing property taxes and cutbacks in medical coverage.
This one I will fight as hard as I can, said Corinne Boni, president of Hewlett-Woodmere Citizens Committee. What I am suggesting to [the board] is that if you do this, do it incrementally, stretched out over a period of time.
Half of us are living on fixed incomes, another senior citizen told the board. You are pushing these people out of this neighborhood.
But board members and many residents in the audience who gathered for a special meeting on Thursday, Dec. 20 feel that building a new middle school behind the existing one is the only option.
The current middle school suffers from a slew of problems. Mold permeates the building giving off a stench that wafts through the halls. As a result, the health conditions of several students and faculty members have been aggravated. Pieces of the ceiling have fallen down in many places. The front wall of the building leaks like a sieve. Students squeeze into classrooms because of the overcrowding problem. Non-classrooms have become makeshift learning environments.
The reason that the school is in such poor condition is that it was cheaply built, board president Richard Braverman said. Woodmere Middle School was built in 1959-60 and opened up in 1961. Initially, a bond issue was voted down in 1957, so a committee of community members was created to see how they could gather funds for the project. Because they didn't get enough money from the school budget, they cut corners when building the middle school.
There is no other way except to rebuild this building, said trustee Stephanie Gallo, the only board member to vote against putting the proposition up for a Feb. 12 vote. We have tried every possible solution. If we don't rebuild now, then we will have to do it later.
While Gallo recognizes the necessity to address the problems of the Woodmere Middle School, she is the only board member who believes that this year is not the best time to do it.
I voted against it because I don't feel that this is the time. With Sept. 11, with county reassessment, I think that it's not fair to do it to people, she said in a telephone interview. We are still paying for the high school [renovations], we are still paying for a Hewlett Elementary School, and for the library.
The financial impact to residents, if the bond is passed, is estimated at $27.70 per month for a house assessed at $10,000. And it will not kick in until 2004, said Dr. Karen Chapman, assistant superintendent for business.
Architects hired by the board from Kaeyer Garnet & Davidson (KG&D) in Mount Kisco reduced the size of a new building in the preliminary plans from 140,000 square feet to 130,000, in order to bring the cost down from the initial projection of $43.5 million to $41.9 million.
When architects designed the building, they worked from the district educational reports established by Dr. Frank Hill, a nationally known specialist in middle school education, in addition to the New York State requirements, and the square footage needs for the growing number of students attending the school.
The proposed new building covers an area which is 17,000 square feet less than the plan put before the community in March 2000 which failed in a bond vote. That building, conceived by the Spector Group, would have cost taxpayers $51 million.
Construction would begin a year after bond approval, when design plans would be finalized and the bidding process completed. It would take another 20 months to complete construction for the actual building, and an additional 12-18 months for demolition and field restoration. The whole project should take four and a half years, said Russ Davidson of KG&D.
