From the Desk of Selectman Joel Bruzinski.
From the Desk of Selectman Joel Bruzinski
This coming Saturday, October 5th is the referendum for the proposed Sherman School renovation. I am pleased to be able to write that the proposed renovation plan and the corresponding bonding package has the unanimous, bi-partisan support of the entire Board of Selectman as well as the Town Treasurer.
Over the past several weeks you may have seen informative columns written by First Selectman Don Lowe and Selectman Bob Ostrosky regarding the proposed renovation and the associated tax implications. Both Don and Bob have done an excellent job in laying out the circumstances at the Sherman School that necessitate this renovation, the various paths and plans that were considered, the renovation plan that the School Building Committee ultimately settled on and the bonding package details for that plan. If you have not read these columns, I would urge you to visit the Board of Selectman page on the Town Website where they are all archived. I would like to reiterate the impact that this proposal has on your taxes will max out at just $40 per $100,000.00 of your property’s assessed value for each of the next 8 years after which that annual, cumulative increase will then reverse and start to decrease. The bonding projections, as presented, assume no growth to the grand list (revenue), giving the Sherman voters a realistic and conservative view of what this project will cost them both as a town and individually. These proposed bonding impacts are also posted on the Town Website on a banner right at the top of the home page.
An aspect of this proposed renovation that has not been given much “air-time” is perhaps the most important one of all: security. To be clear, our current school facility meets today’s necessary requirements for security standards. However, the proposed renovation represents a profoundly significant upgrade to the safety and security of the Sherman School's staff and children. As required by statute, a school renovation must place the latest and best security criteria codified by the State’s School Safety Infrastructure Council as a central component of its design. This full renovation that I'm asking you to approve achieves a much more comprehensive level of security for a building originally designed long before the present threat levels were conceived of.
My vision of Sherman is not one of a town that is content with a “good enough” approach to a secure school but rather one that pursues a comprehensive, robust and lasting security solution for our school community. The recent tragic event at Apalachee High School in Georgia highlighted the difference a “what we can do” approach made over a basic “what we are required to do” approach. That terrible morning a new technology that the school had just voluntarily implemented was credited with very likely saving lives by drastically improving the speed and accuracy of the law enforcement response. Let that sink in – it is likely that children went home to their parents that day because the community had chosen to do more than meet the required minimum school security standards. Even though my children have aged out of the Sherman School, I take the security of that facility no less seriously than if they were still there today. I am hopeful that our collective sentiment as a community is the same. Every faculty member, child and their families deserve the peace of mind in knowing Sherman is doing its absolute best to provide the safest and most secure educational environment. While there are many positive aspects of the proposed Sherman School renovation I will be voting for on Saturday, a significant increase to facility security will be a top one driving my “Yes” vote.
