May 20, 2021
Editor, Townsman:
On June 5, voters will be asked, once again, to allow the town to raise taxes to fund $280 milliopn in new loans $165 million for unfunded pensions and another $115 million to build a new Shawsheen Preschool and West Elementary School.
Itâs time for Andover voters to push back, and not approve these massive obligations without a plan for pension reform, and a more thoughtful review of these unaffordable school plans.
Letâs start with the pensions: I have no issue with firefighters and police officers getting pensions. They put their lives on the line, 24/7, to protect us. Teachers, however, should not continue to get publicly funded pensions.
May 13, 2021
Editor, Townsman:
My children had the benefit of starting their elementary education at Shawsheen Elementary School and completing their final three years at West Elementary. While the education and commitment of the teachers was excellent, the buildings were grossly inefficient and substandard for current learning environments.
Over the years, we have put Band-Aid solutions onto both West El and Shawsheen to keep the buildings operational for our children. The problems are still there, we just continue to cover them up in hopes that they will go away.
With Andoverâs acceptance into the Massachusetts School Building Authority s grant program for school building construction, we now have the opportunity to create a permanent solution for two schools by building a West Elementary and Shawsheen Preschool academic campus on the site of the current West El.
May 6, 2021
Editor, Townsman:
There are many reasons for Andover voters to support construction of a new West Elementary and Shawsheen Preschool at Town Meeting on June 5 and at the ballot box on June 15.
Chief among these is that the new schools will allow for the type of learning experiences which our students need to thrive in the modern world, opportunities for which are extremely limited in the current outdated buildings.
Another important reason is that the investment in these new schools makes financial sense.
In addition to the numerous structural and educational deficiencies of the current schools, both are expensive to maintain and use energy much less efficiently than a modern building (by a factor of at least three).