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A Full Range of Options

Madison’s citizens have clear choices with respect to Academy School.

They can tear it down and return it to grass, thereby extending the Town Green and maintaining the integrity and public ownership of the town’s historic district. The cost of this would be relatively modest, but it’s not free.

Madison could invest heavily to refurbish or rebuild the property for public use, like meeting or arts space. This might serve the town well, but would add significantly to our tax burden

The third option is to sell the property to a developer who will turn it into retail or residential property. This would be the least costly and add property to the tax rolls, thereby alleviating our tax burden, but it would forever remove the property from the Historic District and increase the risk of an eyesore since the town can’t control its future. And when developers learn that the property may be available, we will have well-funded special interests to contend with.

The online survey and the March 28 hearing at the Polson School were seriously flawed and the results should be discarded since they addressed only how to develop the property and not the first order of decision, which is whether it should be developed. For all practical purposes, developing the property means selling it since the development costs are probably more than the town is willing to bear.

This is an important and very long term decision and our citizens deserve to be given an honest choice of alternatives with the costs, advantages, and disadvantages clearly spelled out and written by serious advocates of each.

I hope the Board of Selectmen and other town officials will do their job and give our citizens a full range of options.

David Rackey

Madison