High School Hijinks--A Commentary

Well, Round One (or is it round 20?) of the Battle for the New High School took place last Thursday night, with the decision going to the High School -- at least for now. The next round plays out Monday night (5/9), and this will prove to be the "do or die" match.

On one side is the Mayor, his financial team, and four members of the Board of Aldermen who are in favor of appropriating an additional $22 million to complete the project. As previously reported, the Mayor presented the financials to a Joint Convention of the City Council last Thursday evening and pointed out the ramifications of the additional costs, which are not insignificant, but do not appear to be insurmountable, given the 84% reimbursement we can expect from the State through the School Building Assistance program.

On the other side you have three members of the Board of Aldermen who seem opposed to the additional appropriation -- but the opposition coming from at least two of them seems more politically than fiscally motivated.

First is Alderman Michael Marchese. Marchese has always opposed the building of the new high school on The Terraces, so his opposition to an additional appropriation should not surprise anyone. In fact, it would be hypocrisy for him to vote any other way.

Alderman DeMaria and Alderman Van Campen, however, are another story.

Alderman Van Campen behaved in his usual "nobody tells me nothin' " manner -- claiming he hadn't been informed in enough detail prior to the meeting of the particulars of the additional appropriation and accusing the Mayor of dropping the ball in providing the information. What Van Campen would've liked to leave out of that equation is that there was a formal meeting of the Finance Committee, and the Mayor also had two informal meetings in his office with the Finance Committee in which the particulars were discussed -- and Van Campen missed one of those meetings. Van Campen chastised the Mayor, claiming it was incumbent upon him to make sure that those who missed the meeting received the information. This makes one wonder -- when Mr. Van Campen was in law school and had to miss a class, did he expect the professor to chase him down to make sure he had the details of the lecture, or was he expected to "get the notes from a classmate"? This is not the first time that Van Campen has claimed that he didn't have enough information to make a decision -- nor is it the first time that his own lack of follow up was part of the reason that he didn't have the information. Why does Alderman Van Campen think he's entitled to be spoon fed every detail and that he has no obligation to do a little of his own research? Not only had Van Campen not taken the time to follow up on the meeting that he missed, he now wants to invest an additional $30,000 to hire "outside consultants" to go over the numbers because he has so little faith in the information provided by the City's own financial experts -- including an outside financial advisor who has been doing work for the city for 25 years. Does Van Campen believe that Ragucci has such a Svengali-like hold on these people that they would risk their professional and personal reputations just to make him happy?

But the greatest example of political arrogance came in the form of Alderman DeMaria, who had nothing to add to the conversation but insults -- both personal and political. He and the Mayor exchanged barbs back and forth -- and in truth, the Mayor allowed DeMaria to bait him on a couple of occasions, which also added nothing to the conversation -- but in the end DeMaria looked like all he was interested in doing was making the Mayor and the members of his administration look bad. Some seem to believe that DeMaria was "standing up for what's right." Is it right to waste time talking about rehabbing the old high school -- at a cost of at least $40 million -- none of which is reimbursible by the State? Is it right to continue to delay a project because you have some personal animosity toward the Mayor and one of your "good buddies" happens to be running against him? Is it right to stand up and insult the intelligence and commitment of city employees -- not to mention Stephen Sachetta, who donates his time to the School Building Commission -- simply because they are friends of the Mayor? There was a time that DeMaria was a supporter and a friend of the Mayor -- at least that's what he claimed. Well -- as the old saying goes -- "with friends like that, who needs enemies"?

Questioning the additional appropriation and how it will affect the City is certainly legitimate. That's what our representatives should do. Using the high school issue as a pawn in a political chess game, however, is not acceptable -- and it appears that at least two of the members of the Board are doing exactly that. Let's hope that they've done all of their homework between Thursday and Monday night, that they have all their facts together, that they'll come to the meeting and have their questions answered, and then vote to do the ultimate right thing -- move forward with the construction of the new high school.