Letter to the editor: vote for school option L3

Editor’s note: This letter originally appeared in LincolnTalk in response to a comment about the environmental impact of demolition.

To the editor:

As you may or may not know, since last fall, a community of local architects has been meeting on an ad hoc basis and have regularly attended the SBC meetings and their public forums. Over the course of this process, we have tried to share our combined expertise with suggestions to the SBC and their design team to create not only a financially viable project but to do so with a bonafide respect for our Lincoln heritage.

We have a gem of an actual campus for our students, and it is truly unique for a public school setting. It fits with Lincoln’s legacy of preserving land in its natural state, and it is an extraordinary experiential lesson for our children on a daily basis: namely, that this community values our open space to the degree that our buildings quietly inhabit the land rather than the opposite—a condition that is unfortunately so prevalent in our current culture.

For what it’s worth, nearly all of this group of local professionals with worldwide experience favor a version of the L3 scheme—partly because we believe we should first and foremost fulfill the educational mission as best we can, partly because we believe the L3 scheme can be achieved with less wasteful square footage and therefore less cost than as shown, and finally because we think we as a town would be making a terrible mistake in abandoning our unique campus layout.

Most of us also believe that demolishing so much of the existing structures and spending $95 million for an “Anywhere, USA” type school is NOT environmentally responsible. Among our concerns is that doing so will lead to locating parking lots closer to the building such that they (with solar panel arrays above) will become a defining feature of a once beautiful campus. Along these lines, I personally believe the SBC has not had the best advice or has been deaf to suggestions about the many negative site implications engendered by the compact C scheme as shown.

Lastly, I personally believe the SBC is not fully attuned to how many people may balk at a $95 million price tag for the compact scheme when they figure out just how much their taxes will increase. The increase will be large no matter which way we vote, but I think folks should understand that there could be a “less large” alternative with a refined L3 scheme, and the benefit is that L3 both fulfills the educational mission and preserves the campus setting.

Please vote for the L3 scheme on June 9th!

Ken Hurd
21 Lexington Rd., Lincoln