Council delays vote on Vets funds

“We’re not going to get any other business done here tonight. In fact, I don’t know if we’re going to complete this here tonight,” said City Council President Joseph Solomon on Monday night during public comment on the school bond issue.

He was right.

After nearly four hours of discussion and questioning, school administrators, the City Council still had not reached a decision on allocating the $4 million in school bond funds that would be crucial to making repairs to the heating system at Vets.

Superintendent Philip Thornton, who was seated with School Committee Chair and Vice Chair Beth Furtado and members of school administration, indicated they were prepared for what’s to come.

“We will go back on the 20th [of March] and continue to advocate for our schools,” he said in an email on Tuesday.

The Council again peppered school administrators, particularly Chief Budget Officer Tony Ferrucci and Building and Grounds Director Steve Gothberg, with questions seeking more information. After his questioning of Ferrucci, Councilman Richard Corley said he supported making issues at Vets a priority, but wasn’t sure if the schools needed $4 million to do so.

“I can support the idea of making a change in the heating system and air exchange system at Vets. That should be the number one priority. I don’t know if you have already settled that $4.8 million still from the you money received last year – I don’t know how much more money you need in order to be able to take care of the property at Vets whether it’s the kitchen, elevator, and HVAC system but I think those would be the big priorities that I would be looking at and I don’t think you need the $4 million in order to do that,” Corley said.

“I think it’s probably half that. And I think that’s what I would probably be arguing with fellow members of the Council concerning what should be appropriated for this bond because once it’s spent, it’s spent.”

Questions, particularly from Councilman Ed Ladouceur, went long into the night and many had left by the time the public was able to offer comments. However, some remained. Resident and former School Committee candidate Dean Johnson said it would be more worthwhile to put money toward new schools, comparing making repairs to the old buildings to “putting lipstick on a pig.”

“Other communities are building new… we should be talking about building new. We have the opportunity now. We know the neighborhood school models don’t work anymore. We don’t have the population,” he said. “We know we’re going to transport kids here and there, so why don’t we build a brand new destination that parents will want to send their kids?”

School Committee member David Testa liked the idea of building new, but didn’t feel it was feasible for reasons of cost and that the gap between the rest of the schools and a new school would widen.

“If we’re going to devote a very large piece of change to a school, whether it has 900, 1,100 kids, 1,200 kids, that’s a $100 million plus proposition. The rest of our schools all have deficiencies that have been identified not only by SMMA, but by RIDE…every other school needs work,” he said. “We can build a new school and that’s nice, but we also have to take care of the schools. We owe it to the students and teachers in our schools, and I don’t see how you can square that circle.”

School Committee Vice Chair Eugene Nadeau also spoke, emphasizing the importance of bond funds to school improvements and to the value of a high school diploma in Warwick.

“That $85 million is important. It was approved by the committee unanimously. It will make the outsides and the insides of those schools into something that our beautiful students deserve,” he said. “I urge the $4 million, I beg of you the $85 million.”

The finance committee postponed a vote on the $85 million bond amount as the committee first wanted input from the State Department of Education. That delay virtually ensures that the bond won’t come before voters in a special election this fall as the School Committee had hoped.

Though Ferrucci and Gothberg did their best to answer the flurry of questions, the Council did not come to a decision on releasing the money for Vets. Councilman Steve Merolla invoked a council rule to end the meeting around 11:30 p.m., designating the continuation of the conversation for the next meeting on March 20.