Cahill gets first-hand look at school plan

Date: 7/19/2010

July 19, 2010

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

LONGMEADOW -- Massachusetts State Treasurer and gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill paid a visit to Longmeadow High School to tour the school speak with members of the School Committee on July 12.

Cahill, who is also chairman of the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), had the opportunity to see first-hand the structural and design flaws in the current building as well as see plans for the proposed renovations and new construction.

"It's clear that [the town of Longmeadow] couldn't have fixed any more than we're saving," Cahill said. "It seems to be a perfect solution to the problem that's been faced by the students and the administrators in the town of Longmeadow."

Longmeadow has been approved by the MSBA for a grant of up to $34,004,658 towards the high school project, which includes renovations to existing facilities as well as a new structure.

Longmeadow voters OK'd the project at the June 8 town elections, with nearly two thirds of the voters posting 'yes' tallies.

"The kind of support we got from the Longmeadow taxpayers is phenomenal," Cahill said. "We will keep up our end of the bargain and make sure this building gets built the way it was designed to get built at the cost it was proposed to be built at."

School Committee Chairman Armand Wray expressed his pleasure with working with the MSBA, calling it a "great experience for us."

"I think we're seeing that if you do the work, you put in your time, you state your case and you lay out the facts as they are, good thing happen for education across the state now and that's just a positive for all of us," Wray said.

Cahill observed the entry points for underground utilities currently at the school, cracks and step downs in the walls and protruding steel beams in a classroom that held a wall in place.

Christine Swanson of the School Building Committee said that while it was Cahill's first visit to the high school, the MSBA, including Executive Director Katherine Craven, has been very visible in the town and diligent in its assessment of the building.

"They've been here a number of times," Swanson said, "It's the first time that Treasurer Cahill has been here, but when we first issued the statement of interest back in July of [2007], they actually came out to do a senior study, which is a two-day review and there have been several tours that they've taken with us as we've been through various steps."

"It's actually an eye-opener ... when you see the step-off of the walls, when you actually see the subterranean utilities that we have to manage," she added.

Cahill, whose gubernatorial campaign focuses heavily on fiscal responsibility, stressed that being responsible doesn't prevent spending money on school projects such as the one in Longmeadow.

"It reinforces the message both locally and state that if we do things in a fiscally responsible manner, if we watch out for the taxpayers' money, we can still make investments, we can still build buildings and we can provide our children with the best opportunities to compete in the 21st century," Cahill said. "It's a win-win. The locals win, the state wins because we have better educated students and better buildings for them. We can attract and keep more teachers."

While acknowledging that it has not always been the case, Cahill pointed out that this and other area school projects, such as the Minnechaug Regional High School project and the new Chicopee and Chicopee Comprehensive high schools, help illustrate the fact that lawmakers in the eastern half of the state are looking west.

"This is an example of an authority that is looking at the merits or the demerits of a particular situation and fixing what's broken, irregardless of political establishment or political connections that are involved," Cahill said. "We're putting a good amount of money here in Western Massachusetts and really throughout the entire state.

"We're very conscious of that because most of the money spent under the old program (the former commonwealth School Building Assistance program) were concentrated east of [Route] 128 and in the big cities so that the suburbs were really left behind and you can see what happens when it's left behind in a community like this."