Voices of Franklin: David Brennan - Vote No

This was posted earlier on Saturday as a comment on the Comment Policy posting posted in Dec 2007 and hence buried in the archives. I have re-posted it here rather than leave it buried.


David Brennan - Mar 17, 2012 11:06 AM
My son will be attending Franklin High School in the fall and I will be voting no to a new building.

I recently toured the High School at an open house and found it to be perfectly fine. In fact it is much nicer than the Franklin Charter School my son has attended for 8 years which was built in 1955.

The Parmenter School was built in 1951,Davis Thayer was built in 1924, Kennedy and Horace Mann in the sixties, Tri County was built in the 70's.

All these schools are still going strong and there is no reason the High School which is only forty years old can't do the same for decades to come.

The tax payers of Franklin have been very generous over the past few years - approving monies for both reasonable updates to existing schools and building new ones.

Franklin High may need some sprucing up but everything I have read about and seen in person is cosmetic and can be done at a far lower cost than tearing down the school and building a completely new one.

Of course you would have to want to keep spending down in order to do that. Instead town officials have chosen to take the bait from the state where the incentive is to make the project as expensive as possible.

Nobody knows what the final cost will be. The Ballot question gives no definite amount of money that we are being asked to approve. It does not say a debt exclussion of $47 Million - it is completley open ended.

It would be foolish for tax payers to give a blank check to town officials who along with the state have thus far demonstrated every proclivity to spend as much money as possible.

We have only been presented with one choice and it is by far the most extravagant and expensive one and it could in the end be even more extravagant and expensive than we now know.

If we give them open ended approval does anyone doubt that they will not go for broke with a once in a lifetime opportunity to throw in as many expensive extras and pet projects as they can possibly tag on. They could throw in an Olympic Pool and Ice Arena if they like.

I'll be voting no because:

Spending $100 Million + on a new school to address cosmetic issues with the existing one is extravagant and wasteful.

The ballot is worded in such a way that it is simply a blank check and gives free reign for even more money to be spent.

Finally there is the common good to consider. These days many working families and especially our senior citizens are in no position to have taxes increased even more than they already go each year. They simply can't afford to build a fancy new school just because some folks find the existing one to be a little drab.


Editorial Note: There are two factual errors in the above that are corrected here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2012/03/two-additional-points-for-david-brennan.html