Letter: Vote No On Oct. 8

To the Editor:

My issue is that the numbers just don't add up. [Grades] preK to 2 numbers are trending down. MCAS scores are down. The amount of surplus property the city owns is growing.

Disingenuous people sending their children to private schools while claiming the need for a new school. Additional burden to taxpayers for the need of a new public safety complex.

Sitting city councilor profiting from his documented pro new school position. The omission of up-to-date enrollment numbers.

City employee running a private business in a public building that NAPS oversees. A member of the School Committee that has voted for increases to his employer's bus contract. (Editor's note: the member recused themself. )

These numbers just don't add up for me.

Chris Tremblay
North Adams, Mass. 

North Adams Voters to Decide Greylock School Project

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
08:45PM / Sunday, October 06, 2024

Mayor Jennifer Macksey at the project forum held at Greylock earlier this summer. She says she feels optimistic about the vote. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Voters will decide the fate of the long-gestating Greylock School project on Tuesday.

 

There is only one question on the ballot, whether to approve a debt exclusion that will allow borrowing for the project outside the limitations of Proposition 2 1/2 for the life of the loan. It is not an override.

 

The City Council approved the spending in July but a ballot vote is required to exclude the debt.

 

A yes vote will move the project forward; a no vote will essentially kill it.

 

Voting will take place from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. at St. Elizabeth's Parish Center.

 

The questions about the project have largely revolved around two issues: the cost to the taxpayer and enrollment. 

 

The School Committee voted last year to reduce from three elementary schools to two in light of the student population declining and to reconfigure the grades in the remaining schools as a better educational option. Colegrove Park would become a Grades 3 to 6 school and the new school a prekindergarten through 2 early education center.