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Committee honors Dana Cutler for service

Date: 5/10/2011

May 11, 2011

By G. Michael Dobbs

Managing Editor

CHICOPEE — The School Committee honored longtime teacher and former member of the School Committee Dana Cutler on May 4 with the announcement that a plaque noting his career would be placed in Chicopee High School.

Cutler received a standing ovation from the School Committee. The plaque, which details his accomplishments as an educator, will be placed outside the Distributive Education program at the high school.

"He has been working hard on behalf of the children for a long time," School Committee member Michael Pise said.

Mayor Michael Bissonnette also announced at the meeting that the composition of the School Committee with 12 members would remain due to the City Council rejecting an effort to amend the City Charter through a home rule petition.

"I will not initiate it again it as it fell on deaf ears," Bissonnette said.

The School Committee had voted to eliminate the at-large position recently filled by the late Susan Lecca as a means to return to an odd numbered board.

The mayor has discussed in the last several months his plan to reduce city government by eliminating seats on both the City Council and the School Committee to better reflect the size of the city's population. Chicopee has a larger school committee for instance than Springfield, which is about three times its size.

Bissonnette also announced there is "some interest in the market for [the former] Belcher School." The City Council approved a Request for Proposal for the school building and Bissonnette said it was his intentions to use whatever funds are realized through the sale of the property to pay for renovations to the former library building next to City Hall.

The mayor would like to re-use the library building as an annex to City Hall, relocating School Department offices there as part of a consolidation effort.

He added he would like to move the School Department out of its present location "before the building comes down on us."



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