Nothing like moving around dirt for new school construction four weeks before a big election in Black Rock, the highest voter turnout area of the city. Yes, one big happy family. And who knows, maybe a few more announcements over the next four weeks? Hmmm, could a few absentee ballots be buried underneath the pile? Were City Council challengers Rick Torres and Phil Blagys spying aboard their bicycle built for two? News release from Mayor Bill Finch:
Black Rock School students cheered and joined in the effort as Mayor Bill Finch, Supt. Paul G. Vallas, City Council members, State Representatives and tradespeople turned over the ‘ceremonial’ dirt for the new addition to Black Rock School on Tuesday afternoon.
The 18,000 square-foot addition includes 10 new classrooms, a multipurpose room that can serve as a gymnasium and assembly space, elevator access to all floors to make it ADA compliant, two new playground structures and a new entrance area on School Street. The addition was designed by Newman Associates of New Haven. Bismark Construction is the construction manager and Premier Construction Mac LLC is the joint venture partner on the project. The addition will cost $8.8 million, with the state paying 80 percent. Construction is expected to be complete by August 2014.
“My administration has worked very aggressively to improve our school facilities, either through the building of new schools or significantly upgrading existing buildings. The students of Bridgeport deserve a learning environment that gives them an opportunity to grow, learn and compete in the 21st century economy,” said Mayor Bill Finch. “The addition to the school gives the children of Black Rock a state-of-the-art building and allows the Black Rock School community the same K-8 environment that other schools in the City have, which I know is very important to the parents and students.”
“The expansion of Black Rock School to include 7th and 8th grade is a win for both the school district and the community,” said Superintendent Paul Vallas, “We are grateful to neighborhood parents and to the City and State for their partnership in creating the chance for students to have access to state-of-the-art facilities and remain in their community school until the transition to high school.
“I am thrilled that our persistence has brought this project to fruition. The parents at Black Rock School worked tirelessly with the city to be certain this project maintained its place as a top priority,” said 130th District City Council representative Susan Brannelly. “Our goal is to keep young families in our city with high quality schools to educate their children. This project will help us all considerably to reach that goal.”
“This addition will make Black Rock School a top-notch neighborhood school facility, providing students with a cohesive learning environment until they are ready to move on to high school and further increasing the desirability of the neighborhood,” said 130th district City Council representative Steven Stafstrom Jr. “Susan and I want to thank the Mayor and our Council colleagues for their support in keeping this project on track, and State Rep. Auden Grogins for her support in ensuring the receipt of state funding for the project.”
“Bridgeport students deserve this long-awaited addition and improvements to Black Rock School which will enhance the educational environment for teachers and students alike,” said State Rep. Auden Grogins. “I would like to thank Mayor Finch and our City Council members, Susan Brannelly and Steven Stafstrom, for their help and support on this.”
“The students of Bridgeport deserve a learning environment that gives them an opportunity to grow, learn and compete in the 21st century economy,” said Mayor Bill Finch.
The voters and taxpayers of Bridgeport deserve a financial environment that gives them access to honest comments from their elected Mayor, his OPM Director and others who failed to budget $3.3 Million of funds to meet State minimum budget requirements. It would be tragic to have up-to-date buildings and the State slap Bridgeport with negative funding consequences that affect operations. In the meantime, how many pictures of Bill behind a big pile of dirt with a grin on his face can you stand? While he is smiling, he can’t answer questions. But if you read the article I sent Lennie today and is posted, you can see I have been raising this issue for many months now and the City Council may be getting tired of hearing it. Why not add your voice to the fray and ask Mayor and the City Council folks where they will revise the current year budget (reducing some areas) to come up with the necessary dollars for education.
They need to be seen working on this subject rather than on dirt piles, don’t you think?
With a building deadline of September 2014, it appears, it is well the eminent domain action was taken off the front burner, in my opinion. How happy would you be as a property owner, were you offered as complete payment for your property an amount less than the value on which you were paying current taxes? Does that sound fair? It’s hard to fight a team that has no ready accountability for spending your money to pay for legal expenses while you have to go into your pocket. And how detailed are the reports on City legal expenses by category? By payee? By project? Time will tell.
Tip of the hat to the dedicated group known as The Black Rock Betties for never giving up on their dreams. This one is coming true.
I totally agree. If the Black Rock Betties ever set their minds to it, they would be elected mayor. Force of nature. Still, though the groundbreaking is good news, I am so weary of Finch and his pals doing nothing until it is election season. New sidewalks in the East End, Black Rock–East Side, West Side. What has happened since Finch last had to run, or Brannelly for that matter? Only what has been driven by community activists. No, none, nada leadership. None.
Do you think the government shutdown will hurt the Republicans in the 130th???
*** Let’s hope it hurts the GOP incumbents in Wash DC, donj! However on a Park City local level, let’s hope it helps them “win” some seats on the city council. Lord knows we need any type of change besides the same old Dem. song and dance we’ve been stuck on stupid with for a while. Now the GOP in Wash seems to always want to bargain in good faith of course (?), on the wrong subjects at the wrong times, so it seems like. Then when they can’t have their cake and eat it too, it’s time to pout and shout “FOUL!” Or am I just seeing things from an independent Democrat’s point of view? *** LORD HELP US! ***
*** OIB, it’s not time to throw cold water on this Black Rock School “new addition” celebration just yet because some of the political players involved may not be very popular in the ROCK! For it’s a wonderful thing, any time a new school is built, school addition is added or just bringing up an old school to code compliance happens in the Park City. However, when these school celebrations happen and credit is given, you never hear mentioned the hard work and countless meetings and decisions made that take place behind the scenes by the city’s “school buildings committee!” Years before the actual finished school products, the committee works with the grants dept, Federal government, State, BOEs (state and city), school community involved, city’s legal dept, construction and architect companies, etc. drawing up the plans do’s and don’ts ’til it’s reality. So let’s all give a cheer for the starting point of the Black Rock School’s new addition, no? ***
Great observation, Mojo.
There is a committee in Bridgeport that deals with the hundreds of millions spent on new school buildings or remediation and renovation of land and buildings for public schools (but it is not listed with other boards or commissions on the City site).
It has nine members, three representing the City Council, three from the Board of Education and three nominated by Mayor Finch. They hold monthly meetings (but those meeting dates and places are not routinely listed on the City site).
The staffing of the committee is very professional and provides packets of info each month to attending members (and any public members who show up) and the packets are very informative (they could be a model of disclosure to City Council committees in the future if anyone cared to carry that observation to the administration).
Why is a committee like this, spending local and State taxpayer money in large amounts, audited by the State because of the historically high (80-90% State share), and meeting important timelines such a SECRET???
There would be no photo op without the oversight by this group in seeing that plans become reality in an orderly manner. Someone else may wish to question whether all of the dollars are well spent, but that is a subject for another day. In the meantime, I continue to wonder why the activity of this group, its meeting schedules, copies of its minutes with handouts, and its welcoming attention to public members who have an opportunity to ask questions informally, are not worthy subjects for the City website. Time will tell.
Photos are already posted on the 130th district Facebook page. Same photos as the mayor’s release. Golly, could the mayor’s staff or city IT Dept be providing campaign support at taxpayer expense?
Negativity and doomfreaks dominate here. Maybe the reason they don’t “get it” is because they don’t “have it.”
It’s hard to find clean fill these days, so I’d like to thank the boys from the WPCA for helping out!
I totally agree with you on this one, and this is certainly the right group to be shoveling this sh~t. Mojo as usual was correct. These people had little to do with any of the actual preparation of this wonderful project. This is just one more photo op to hang on their walls.
In Black Rock incest is relative with incumbents.
“Yahoo Mayor” screaming.