"To take what there is, and use it, without waiting forever in vain for the preconceived -- to dig deep into the actual and get something out of that -- that doubtless is the right way to live."

-- Henry James

Fresh inspiration on a beautiful Sunday morn'...

Ah, it all hurtles south so fast. Where are we now? Facilities. Still plagued. Any concrete plans in place yet? Let's see...

The ABOE packet arrived on Friday. Three Facilities Committee meetings are summarized in the new, highly-detailed Official Minutes style. This is perfect for the arm chair enthusiasts out there. If you can't attend every last little meeting, you just need to wait for the monthly Board packet to catch up. (Boy, if they were only online! For now, let's just imagine that the following hyperlinks work, and I promise to look into posting the actual files, if I can get them, on Monday...)

At any rate, seems to have been some discord in the month of June regarding Facilities (imagine!). But also some progress, in that an award of contract seems to have been made to study the HS auditorium conundrum. Yes, study -- not actually fix. And it don't come cheap either, at $49,000. Also, there doesn't seem to be any discernable timeline here... When it's done, it's done, is all one can assume.

And please! Don't go asking all those pesky questions about how the Remediation Bonding was supposed to have been for fixing this auditorium, wasn't it? And hey, what did that money buy us? Or, what about the Atlas settlement money here? What? That went toward paying off the Remediation Bond? Huh? And, come to think of it, what's this reference towards the bottom of page 3 of the 6/02/03 ABOE Minutes, where the Remediation funds are discussed:

"It is clear that some of this money was used to pay non-school construction expenses... The state is adjusting the amount of money we will be reimbursed for these school construction projects to correct this misappropriation of funds."

UGH!

No. No. Don't go there...

Back to the ticking clock of current facility woes (as opposed to the time bomb of what we will owe when the previous project is finally audited).

In chatting with good ol' Kate O. this morning, we mused "Suppose the auditorium can't be fixed? Will a contractor actually admit this? Or will it be up to the ABOE to make that fateful call?" Let's hope it doesn't come to this. Because there's no good answer to this riddle, let's face it.

In the meantime, the Bethany campus sits -- growing moss to its north side, as Bunny would say (let's just hope not literally)! I'll link here to the Official Minutes:

6/09/03 Joint Finance & Facilities Committees Meeting

6/16/03 Facilities Committee Meeting

6/23/03 Facilities Committee Meeting

Attachment 1: 6/23/03 Letter from B. Murphy-Finneran

Disturbing allegations, seemingly everywhere one looks. Is there a white-wash afoot? Or paranoia run rampant? Bottom line; must we determine which, or can we assume a little of both and get on with the fix?

Who can tell? The folks running the show? Not a lot of supporting evidence for that leap of faith... But what choice have we?

Cue additional cooks, to rush in and examine the soup. It seems the Facilities Committee is now looking to re-form what was once known as the Building Advisory Committee - Bethany Campus (let's refer to that as the BAC-BC, or verbally as BACK-BIC, ok? That would be helpful and fun, right, to have our own insider code? Just like in the days of the old AH-FECK, remember? That really got us somewhere. Surely. Didn't it? Yeah, never mind.)

Anyway, did the first BAC-BC group ever officially disband? Not according to some -- or at least one -- of those involved apparently. But fond recollection prompts me to open my file cabinet and share a little relic from the old days here; the "original strength" version of the pamphlet this group produced -- before political correctness got the better of them perhaps. Notice the back panel of this tri-fold pamphlet, which seeks to answer the age-old question "Why?" As in, why do we find the Bethany Campus in such a mess today.

"During the past number of years, monies and equipment have been allocated in the following areas to the Orange Campus:

* roof was replaced 18 years ago

* lockers were painted and new lighting installed in the gymnasium

* ceiling and lighting fixtures were renovated

* floors were replaced with brighter tiles and are easier to maintain

* driveway and parking areas were blacktopped in two phases

* flooring in gymnasium was repaired on two occasions, and

* toilet fixtures have been replaced more recently.

...It is evident that while the Orange facility is in need of some refurbishment and modernization, the Bethany facility is seriously deficient."

Interesting perspective. (Can't imagine why it would be tempered -- by eliminating that final sentence -- right?) Hhhmmmm... That might lead us to ponder reapportionment...

...Perhaps next time, on As Amity Churns...

So now there's some data to dig into!

With the release last week of the ABOE's Special Review Committee's Final Report, regular folk out here in the district can see what has been going wrong with facility issues in painful detail. Read the Report for yourself by downloading the PDFs (links at right), or watch your local Government Access TV channel to see the presentation of this material. There's certainly a lot to digest...

But no more shell game. No more "Sorry, that's executive privileged information.”

Perhaps with more minds focusing on the various facility quandaries, a collaborative problem solving approach might now succeed. Remember, the ultimate goal is to get a concrete proposal to the community -- a plan that will engender broad-based understanding, agreement and action in the form of a vote to approve funding for some very big projects.

We've lost years now on expansion planning (an original Facilities Expansion Referendum, meant to address the problems we continue to struggle with today, failed on October 16, 2000!) and remediation of the auditorium and other construction flaws... well, that's just a terrible story. Too sad to recount here right now...

You may have noticed the New Haven Register article on Amity the other day, Amity Mess Spurs Calls for Legislation. And the phrase "The Amity Board of Education co-mingled bonding with other funds..."
What's going on here?! Glad you asked!
That's as good a starting point as any. Let's see what documents we can dig up to illuminate this statement...

OK, one New Year's resolution resolved! Welcome to the first post of AmityBlog -- the place to turn when you find yourself scratching your head, a-wondering "What's going on here?!" As AmityBlog gets up and running, the first question to be explored will be; What's going on with Amity facilities, and WHY? Stay tuned for some information... and maybe an answer or two (if there are any to be had at this point)...