No reconsideration motion made on Beech Street School topic

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Two weeks ago, there was a delay for more information. Last week there was a call for action. This week, there was plenty of public comment but no change.

A total of 38 people signed up to testify for public comment during Tuesday night’s Manchester Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BMA) meeting and 29 supported reversing the BMA’s recent decision regarding Beech Street Elementary School and Sheridan-Emmett Park (30 if you count Keating Tufts, who was signed up to talk but had to go back to work according to Ward 7 Board of School Committee Member Chris Potter), but no vote was taken regarding the issue on Tuesday night.

Manchester Mayor Jay Ruais took the tie-breaking vote to oppose the motions two weeks ago, which would have ultimately swapped land between the Manchester School District and City of Manchester to build a new Beech Street Elementary School on the eastern part of Sheridan-Emmett Park with a new park to be located on the current location of Beech Street Elementary School, which is located just across the street.

Ruais stated that he made his vote to obtain more information given the amount of testimony against moving forward with the proposal two weeks earlier, hoping to obtain a broader consensus. Speakers in favor of the school hoped to provide that information directly in what resulted in over an hour of Beech Street supporters urging the decision’s reversal.

Several recurring themes arose from the supporters. It was noted that funding for the new school came due in part to unexpected additional state adequacy aid and the maturity of school district bond debts, allowing new bonding to be offset without any new local tax increases. That bonding had been approved from the BMA earlier this year and efforts toward the move had already been in the works, leading to a cost of $250,000 for each month of delay in already agreed upon expenses.

Supporters also stated highlighted the need for newer public-school facilities across the city, one of the key drivers to the district’s facilities plan, in particular its first phase, which the Beech Street proposal was a part of. In these comments, supporters noted that the school was already past its effective life span, that it did not meet modern educational principles due to its retrofit for its outdated open concept layout, and that the age of the building meant more upkeep and inefficiencies than what would be found in a new school.

Backing from the city’s business community was a recurring point and the fact that the school is also in the heart of the city also was a point of comment from many of the supporters. People mentioning the school’s neighborhood mentioned that the new school was promised to families that left the nearby, dilapidated and recently closed Henry Wilson Elementary School, with those students to be conjoined with current Beech Street students in the new school and many Wilson students currently utilizing temporary classrooms outside of Beech Street. The school’s largely economically disadvantaged families in the area were also part of this point discussed by the supporters.

One of those supporters making that point was Kathy Staub, who grew up in the area to two working-class parents and told the board the education she received helped her obtain a master’s degree and become a state representative in Ward 5, where Beech Street Elementary is located.

She added that the willingness of Manchester to invest in her and her classmates gave them a future and now the question is whether or not children who live in the same neighborhood will get the same treatment.

“The next generation of carpenters and teachers and firefighters and maybe even Aldermen are watching you and waiting to see if Manchester is still a city that believes in the dreams of working-class kids and are willing to invest in them,” said Staub.

Another point supporters mentioned was transparency and the months of deliberation and discussion on the subject, opponents of reversing the decision also discussed transparency and uncertainties related to the upcoming second phase of the facilities plan and the belief that might impact the Beech Street proposal.

There were also concerns regarding the impact on local housing costs, the cost/benefit analysis of a new building versus reinvestment directly into teachers and concerns over the ability of taxpayers to deal with future impacts related to the school. Victoria Sullivan was one of the speakers on that side of the discussion, challenging members of the Board of School Committee who felt that members of the public at the BMA two weeks earlier opposing the new school did not reflect the view of the city’s residents and that a new facility was necessary to improve the school district.

“You can put (kids) into the shiniest building in the world, but without good instructors, it won’t matter,” she said.

Ward 10 Alderman Bill Barry asked City Clerk Matt Normand about whether the vote from two weeks earlier could be reconsidered. Normand cited Aldermanic Rule 12, which stated reconsideration can be brought forward by any member voting in the majority on a motion or by any member at the meeting where the vote occurred if the reconsideration is scheduled for the next meeting.

No members of the majority in the initial vote made a reconsideration vote, with Barry’s question quickly followed by a motion by BMA Chairman Joseph Kelly Levasseur to adjourn, which passed.