This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
10/03/2017 12:00 AMAfter years of studies and an intense few weeks of debate, Madison voters on Sept. 26 rejected the plan to rebuild Ryerson Elementary School. With the school plan now defeated, town officials and interested parties are gearing up for what happens next.
The project was defeated with 2,722 “No” votes to 1,452 “Yes” votes. Voter turnout was 32.3 percent. While the entire project, as presented by the Board of Education, involved a rebuild of Ryerson and a renovation of Jeffrey Elementary, but the only question voters considered on Sept. 26 was the Ryerson build, at a total cost of $34.3 million. The state reimbursement was estimated by consultants and board members at between $4- to $5.7 million. Had it passed, the new Ryerson would have been designed and constructed from late 2017 through summer 2020.
After the vote, Superintendent of Schools Tom Scarice said the result is a setback, but he said it wouldn’t define the quality of work done in the schools. However, Scarice said he has concerns going forward.
“I am concerned for the potential issues with competing for dollars like we have never had to do before with facilities projects and concerned about disruption for students,” he said. “But that said, we are going to do everything to the best of our ability to make sure that we can continue to perform at the highest levels.”
Reflecting on the weeks leading up to the vote, Scarice said he knows this was a tough process for the community.
“This clearly was a divisive process and I want to state emphatically that I am 100 percent committed to helping heal that process,” he said.
Looking ahead, Scarice said there is no current plan to take this project to referendum again; instead the Board of Education (BOE) will look to try and include building projects into the annual budget.
“The plan now is to move forward,” he said. “The footprint goes from six to five and we will take all of those projects that we were going to do in a new construction and in a renovation project and now just piecemeal them over a long period of time.”
Scarice said everything he said before the referendum still stands: The district will contract from six schools to five schools and Island Avenue Elementary is the building slated for closure. Scarice said Island could close as soon as June 2019.
“We have to lay out the work that needs to be done before we do that, so we have to look at everything from the redistricting to transportation routes to programmatic elements we want to entertain when you look at going from K-4 to K-3 and that is all going to be done by the BOE,” he said.
Island is still the chosen school due to location—it is the only school that stands alone, which allows the district to focus on two campuses for security, transportation, and operating efficiencies. How upgrades to the remaining schools will be worked into the town’s Capital Improvement Program (CIP) remains to be seen.
“Polson Middle School has always been part of a CIP plan and then the other elementary schools just join that list,” he said. “As we work with the CIP, as it goes through the process, then CIP has to wrestle with our recommendations for when to fund them and that is not up to the BOE, that is up to the CIP at that point.”
BOE Chair Jean Fitzgerald said working all of the school projects into the CIP could be a challenge, Fitzgerald, who chairs the CIP, said the town historically does not bond for capital projects, meaning payments for school construction will have to come out of cash flow.
“We will work with our consultants to develop a 10-year plan and put all of the capital school projects in it and then it will go through the process,” she said. “Now, how many can be done within the CIP I don’t know.”
Opposing Views
Island Avenue School parent Chip Walz, who founded the political action committee called Focus on Education & Maintain Madison Schools (FEMMS), said the vote was decisive and that he wants to see a different path forward.
“From our perspective as leadership of FEMMS, we have some things that we want to get done in the future, but this was certainly step one of our focus to stop the spending,” he said. “Clearly the town, for a variety of reasons, decided that this was not the right path. From our perspective the BOE needs to revisit the entire plan including Island Avenue and the superintendent’s intention to close Island Avenue no matter what.”
Walz said there were a number of reasons parents and “old timers” voted down the referendum including an interest in saving what they see as their neighborhood schools, a perceived lack of consideration for Polson Middle School, and an unwillingness to spend this amount of money.
“I think there were so many issues that were not addressed with this is why it failed so miserably,” he said. “I think in some ways it’s a vote of no confidence on this topic regarding [Superintendent Tom Scarice]. There are certainly parents who love him and I think he is doing a good job in education, but this particular project was his...It’s his plan and his project and I think that folks clearly said this is not the plan.”
Walz said the BOE and the superintendent need to go back and address the concerns of parents and residents and come up with a plan that keeps all three elementary schools open moving forward.
“We care about teachers and programs and books and that is what we are completely in favor of protecting,” he said. “…We are going to engage immediately with current BOE members, with the superintendent, and with perspective BOE members that are up for election in November. There will be turnover on the BOE and in particular the leadership; the current leadership of the BOE is not running for re-election.”
Walz also expressed concern as to when the BOE might take a vote on the closing of Island Avenue. Fitzgerald said the BOE is likely to discuss when to take that vote at the October BOE meeting.
False Information, Accusations, Confusion
The days leading up to the referendum reached a fever pitch as false information and accusations flew across social media and into resident’s mailboxes.
Just prior to the vote on Sept. 26, residents reported receiving flyers stuffed into their mailboxes without postage (an act that itself is illegal under federal law). One such flyer read:
“Your taxes will triple!!! Consider the math: new library—already approved + next revaluation – right around the corner + let’s not forget Malloy’s incompetence you are paying for – as he pulls funding from our successful town = your taxes just doubled + proposed new school = your taxes have tripled!!! VOTE NO! And stop the spending.”
The flyer was unsigned and the impact on residents’ taxes is wildly inaccurate. According to Madison Director of Finance Stacy Nobitz, if you assume all other budget factors stayed flat, including the operating budget, it would take an additional $150 million in annual spending to triple the budget.
A different flyer was spotted stuffed in mailboxes in another part of town. This flyer resembled a copy of a letter or email sent by Chip Walz and bearing his name, but Walz said he did not print, distribute, or authorize the use of his name for these flyers.
“There were certainly some flyers that I was not aware of that were distributed,” he said. “I don’t know where some of them came from, but I know that people took some of the emails that I printed and some of the handouts that I took and made those into flyers and walked them around their neighborhood…Everything that I have handed out has been paid for and printed by FEMMS. I have kept everything within the PAC. If someone used my name on certain flyers, that was not me and not authorized.”
Walz said all information he has distributed is accurate and identified the PAC, not himself, as the source.
According to the State Election Enforcement Committee (SEEC), all materials paid for by a PAC have to have an attribution and all PAC finances must be disclosed at varying dates throughout the year. While FEMMS is registered with the Town Clerk’s Office, there is no financial disclosure statement listed. Walz said he knows the PAC will have to file because well over $1,000 has been raised, but said he does not need to file until the end of the year.
However, according to the SEEC, all ongoing PACs must file on the 10th day of January, April, July, and October as well as the seventh day prior to any referendum for which the PAC has received or expended funds in connection with. In addition, the initial PAC registration form states that the financial disclosure form must either be filed with the registration statement or within 48 hours of receiving the committee’s first contribution or distribution.
The day of the referendum itself was not without confusion either. Registrars and the Town Clerk reported several residents showing up at the polls after being given incorrect information by undisclosed parties on what forms of identification are needed to vote. Town Clerk Nancy Martucci said she has never encountered this problem before.
“We did receive a couple of calls the day of the referendum asking if it was correct that they had to take their tax bills with them to the polling locations,” she said. “They said they had gotten the information somewhere and when I questioned, I didn’t get an answer back as to where the information had come from.”