City Councilor dismayed over lack of respect for Rochester taxpayers

Steven Beaudoin (Courtesy photo)

To the editor:

On Tuesday, Oct. 3, I resigned from the School Joint Building Committee. Since the city elected not to print my letter of resignation in the agenda, I am posting it here:

I am disappointed by the lack of leadership and regard for taxpayer funds on the part of the Council representatives on the committee.

Though many legitimate concerns were raised by neighbors of the project, as I see it, the committee has failed to satisfactorily address them.

Beyond that, it was the council's consensus that three or more schools would be closed as a result of this project. In spite of the School Superintendent's many public statements that the council and school board were in agreement that two schools would be closed, the council failed to counter his statements.

Additionally, though the school administration has admitted that the 50-foot entrance to the facility was woefully inadequate and knew so from the conceptual phase, only one councilor called them out on that.

Furthermore, though we still don't have final numbers on the project, taxpayer funding has been secured for this project.

Finally, the council allowed the school department to basically force them into approving what is arguably one of the worst possible locations for a school by coming in at the 11th hour with only one possible building site.

- Steve Beaudoin,

Rochester

Rochester deserves better. Having 7 elementary schools is unnecessary and since the foresight to identify the west end as the newest and largest growth sector of the city, we will likely end up having to construct yet another school.

The process to build this school is completely skewed. Not identifying all of the wetlands, not doing test borings, not doing a traffic study, not addressing the cost of turning lanes, or the cost of utility extensions prior to moving forward with the land purchase is not how these things should happen. No responsible private sector investor would ever consider a project of this scope without doing their homework in advance. In a city the size of Rochester, with the resources we have, it's inexcusable.