Mangiafico

Still Waiting

For Answers

By John Voket

Republican Selectman Paul Mangiafico, who cast a swing vote defeating proposed bonding for a high school expansion one week earlier, said a meeting he attended March 24 with school district, Legislative Council, and finance officials did not answer questions or directly address concerns he has expressed about the project.

During a special meeting of the Board of Education Tuesday, Chairman Elaine McClure said she felt two elected leaders who attended the meeting were looking for reductions in the budget to help move the project, and another said he did not think making incremental cuts to the high school project budget would make a difference.

“The chairman of the Board of Finance was very frank with us,” Ms McClure said. “He doesn’t think this will be an easy thing to pass Thursday night.”

Ms McClure was referring to a regular finance board meeting that was to be held after The Newtown Bee went to press, during which a reinitiated resolution to appropriate funds for the high school construction phase is expected to be either recommended or opposed.

Finance board Chairman John Kortze said he was in attendance at the Monday strategy session along with Mr Mangiafico, Legislative Council Chairman William Rodgers, town Finance Director Benjamin Spragg, Superintendent Janet Robinson, and school Business Manager Ronald Bienkowski.

“Unfortunately, this is not a situation we should be in,” Mr Kortze replied when contacted about the Monday session. “It is a tremendous travesty that Elaine [McClure] has put the town in this position.”

Mr Kortze said he was referring to Ms McClure’s refusal to adequately and candidly communicate with at least his board as plans for the high school began moving forward nearly two years ago.

Mr Kortze said it is “because of the refusal by the chair” to address questions and concerns repeatedly voiced by finance board members, the expansion proposal has been pushed to its time constraint limits, which is putting the entire project in jeopardy. Mr Kortze was loathe to blame Mr Mangiafico for voting against the bonding, indicating he shared the selectman’s frustrations and earnest desire to have necessary questions answered by the Board of Education and district officials working on the project.

He also confirmed concerns expressed by Mr Mangiafico about returning to the town boards with a reissue of the same $38.8 proposal incorporating the same scope of expansion.

“Paul said to bring it back as is would be a risk,” Mr Kortze said.

Contacted Thursday morning, Mr Mangiafico agreed, saying that he reiterated his questions in writing to Mr Kortze, to be presented Thursday at the finance board meeting if Mr Mangiafico is delayed at an out-of-town appointment and cannot attend or is late arriving.

The selectman added that his impression of Monday’s meeting was that is was simply a strategy session to plan on how to move the project forward.

“At no time did anyone ask me if all my questions were answered, or ask if I was satisfied,” Mr Mangiafico said. “If the Board of Ed thinks [Monday’s] discussion answered all the questions, I don’t agree.”

Contacted after the Monday meeting, council chairman Rodgers said while the tone of the session was “cooperative,” both Mr Mangiafico and Mr Kortze left the meeting with questions unanswered.

Mr Kortze said at the meeting that the superintendent appeared to write down all questions asked, and he assumed they would be addressed and fully vetted at the Tuesday meeting. But at that meeting Ms Robinson briefly stated that everyone was trying to understand all sides of the high school issue.

“Are we in a better place because we talked…yes; are we in agreement…probably not there yet,” Ms Robinson said, adding the best way she saw to move forward was for the school board to reinitiate the appropriation for $38.8 million for the construction phase of the expansion.

Following later discussion among the school board Tuesday, and after a failed motion to cut $2 million from the project budget, a 4-2 vote endorsed reinitiating a new special appropriation resolution with the same specifics as the one that failed to win the support of the Board of Selectman eight days earlier. (See separate story.)