Thursday, April 13, 2000 Older Editions

Get ready for three overrides

By Rebecca Lipchitz

In a move that surprised some fellow town officials, Town Manager Buzz Stapczynski recommended including a sidewalk project on the debt-exclusion ballot next month.

Selectmen voted Monday to include three items on the ballot for a debt-exclusion vote scheduled for Tuesday, May 23.

The three questions are:

o Question 1, asking voters to approve a different funding mechanism for a $12.9 million public safety center;

o Question 2, asking for two new schools at $31.9 million; and

o the in-some-quarters unexpected Question 3, asking for $600,000 to build sidewalks in the neighborhood around those schools.

"What we're trying to do here is get ahead of the curve," says Stapczynski.

Although several school and town officials say they knew the sidewalk article had been separated from the schools-project warrant article, they did not expect the $600,000 sidewalk job to appear on the debt exclusion ballot.

"Some people think I have grand schemes. The only grand scheme I have is fitting everything into the budget," he says.

Selectman Lori Becker says discussions about how the sidewalks in the neighborhood of the new schools would be presented to Town Meeting were continuing among School Committee and Board of Selectmen members when the warrant closed in January.

School officials wanted the off-site sidewalks presented separately because they are controversial, and could jeopardize support for the schools, says Superintendent Claudia Bach.

"It can give voters a reason to pause, and we hope they won't pause in voting for the schools," Bach says Wednesday.

Becker says selectmen think the sidewalks should be part of the school project, but conceded, and made it a separate warrant article from the schools project.

When the project also appeared as an additional item on the debt-exclusion ballot Monday, some were surprised.

Not Selectman Chairman Brian Major.

"I like the idea of making it debt exclusion," he says of Article 10, because it will remove the project from affecting the tax levy.

Becker says school officials had asked selectmen to put the sidewalk project within the tax levy, but selectmen refused.

"We felt it was part of the (new schools) project," Becker says.

If the school article failed, the sidewalks would not be a high priority and should not be in the budget, Becker says.

Stapczynski also believes the neighborhood sidewalks should have been included in the cost of the school project, and in the same debt exclusion question.

Selectmen disagreed, and voted to put the sidewalks on the ballot as a separate question, Stapczynski says.

Constructing sidewalks through a neighborhood where children walk to school is sometimes "an afterthought" for Andover, Stapczynski says. But since the two new schools, if approved, would be built in an undeveloped area, Stapczynski says he wanted the neighborhood sidewalks and the school built at the same time.

"I wouldn't be putting the sidewalks in there if it weren't for the schools," Stapczynski says.

He says he has always felt the sewers, the sidewalks and the schools for West Andover were parts of the same project.

Bach, who is also a member of the School Building Committee, said Tuesday that the School Committee had not discussed the issue.

She also said she was not aware that the neighborhood sidewalk construction project would appear on the debt-exclusion ballot.

Several other school and town officials say they did not expect the sidewalk article to be included on the debt exclusion ballot.

While the building committee supports the building of sidewalks, it did not support including this sidewalk project in the new-schools proposal. Members feared voters might reject the school because of the sidewalks.

Article 9 of Town Meeting 2000 would approve construction of two new schools at Cross Street and High Plain Road, and only sidewalks that extend to the end of the school site, says Mark Johnson, chairman of the School Building Committee.

Article 10 would authorize construction of sidewalks off the school site.

According to Jack Petkus, public works director, the sidewalk construction proposed in Article 10 would cover Forest Hill Drive from River Road past Cross Street to High Plain Road, and on High Plain Road from Haggets Pond Road to Cross Street and one block further.

He estimates the total project to be about two miles of sidewalk.

Stapczynski says the project would be in line with his town-wide plan to prioritize sidewalk projects.

"My position is that any (sidewalk project), within a half-mile of a school, the town should pay for," Stapczynski says.

Johnson says the committee approves of sidewalks "philosophically," but declined to speak about Article 10 because it was not part of the school site.

Finance Committee Chairman Don Schroeder says the FinCom voted to support the new schools, but voted 5-2 not to support a debt exclusion for the public safety center.

"We did not take a position on sidewalks alone," Schroeder says.

Schools Business Manager Bernie Tuttle says at the selectmen's meeting Monday that school administrators wanted to make sure the sidewalk plans were not included in the debt exclusion ballot question for the new schools.

Stapczynski says selectmen had discussed the possibility of changing Article 10 to allow the sidewalks to be paid for by means other than a debt exclusion. But because the debt exclusion ballot vote is now less than 45 days away, the Town Meeting article could not be changed, he says.

The debt exclusion vote is scheduled for May 23 to allow the town time to submit the schools plan to the state for reimbursement by the state's June 1 deadline, the town manager says.

Town Moderator Jim Doherty says if a motion were made on the floor of Town Meeting to amend Article 10, he would likely check with town counsel before entertaining it. But he says no one has approached him yet with such intentions.