This is a printer-friendly version of an article from Zip06.com.
05/03/2018 12:01 AMI hope you’re paying attention to the conversation about Academy School and what we might do with it going forward. The process that we are currently going through has gone on for more than year and a half, and some people are just finding out what it’s all about. If we’re going to come to a resolution about what to do with the school, we need involvement from all sectors of the population.
At our meeting on April 12, the Board of Selectmen came up with several next steps to help bring this to a resolution. Some steps included establishing an ad hoc Academy building committee, which would help do some of the following tasks: Discovering the cost of demolishing the building; discovering the cost of demolishing the building and building a new structure for community use; developing preliminary costs associated with rehabilitating the building for town or community use; soliciting proposals from the four responding developers for a “building only” proposal; and soliciting opinions from historic stakeholders involved in the future of the space, to name a few.
We agreed that we would like to bring this question to referendum on the November ballot. While this is not hard and fast, I think it’s important that we resolve this question in a timely manner, as that resolution has consequences for the downtown in the town in general.
I think it’s also important that we do an honest consideration of all the possibilities and not start to eliminate any prematurely. There are some people who say we should only consider a “building-only” option. I don’t think that’s fair to many other people in town who have followed the discussion, seen the proposals by the developers, and would like consideration of those proposals.
I’m not advocating for anything at this point. What I’m saying is we need to keep all options on the table and eventually come up with the one that’s best for our town. There are benefits to saving the land and benefits to developing a prime piece of real estate in downtown Madison. I think we need to examine all the possibilities.
For sure, we have had a lively conversation. We need to do the next few tasks to bring more information to this conversation. Then we need to use that information to move forward and bring the question to the people of Madison.
What’s the question? That’s the question.