What part of that three-word heading is not comprehensible?

We were given a gift, unconditionally, to accomplish three tasks.

First - to do an Existing Buildings Report for the high school and elementary school. That is not what happened! We did another Existing Buildings Report for both schools. Out of an “abundance of caution,” doing our “due diligence” and getting our “homework done,” we had two done for the price of two.

Second - to design and price a new school building. The B.E.C. is in the process of that right now.

Third - After we had all this information documented, we were going to present it to the voters/taxpayers of both towns and then have a referendum vote! It’s that simple.

Through this entire process, the B.E.C. has asked, begged, pleaded with the public for their input. Everything we have done to this point is on the website or by attending our meetings. They are open to the public. The meetings are on the website also.

As a community, all of us could have come together, rolled up our sleeves, put our collective minds together and gotten this done. It was all left to a few to accomplish.

The Existing Buildings as they are now need $40 million in repairs - no frills! That is over a 20-year spread with a 7% gain every year. Heating and electricity will be approaching a quarter of a million dollars per year. The buildings are not insulated. Plumbing and electrical in the high school are vintage 1956. The B.E.C. conducted two walk-through tours last summer. We didn’t see a whole lot of the concerned public there (I would like to thank those who did attend; it was a boost to our morale.). The board also did a tour that was filmed by the local cable access channel (A big thank you to them; they devoted a great deal of time!).

This will be going out to the public as soon as we have the “work” done and you can have your chance to tell the Building Exploratory Committee of all their failings and how you would have done it, but didn’t get involved and are only left with criticism for those that did. Some in the public have enough time to write long comments on the Comments Page without any facts, but they can’t be bothered to attend a meeting. Shame on you!

This could have been a community-wide effort at no cost to the taxpayer, and in the end, whatever was decided, we could be proud of as a community