government

The Minuteman High School building project hit yet another snag last week when voters in Belmont rejected a bond measure to help fund the new building—even as planning has begun for what to do with the land that will be freed up by the old building’s demolition.

Under the terms of the regional school district agreement, member towns must be unanimous in authorizing debt for the project. The district now includes 10 towns, down from 16 after several including Lincoln voted to withdraw from the district earlier this year to avoid having to pay a member’s share of the capital costs. In any case, the new building will be located on Lincoln land close to the current building, which is just over the Lexington town line.

Belmont, which has a representative town meeting form of government, voted against the bonding measure by a 141-81 margin on May 4. Acton, Bolton, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington and Stow have already approved the project by wide margins, some unanimously, and the last two towns, Arlington and Needham, voted yes on May 9.

Minuteman Superintendent/Director Ed Bouquillon attributed the Belmont defeat to “a lack of understanding and a lack of information.” He said he had asked selectmen back in 2015 to be part of the discussions but was not invited to make a presentation at the Board of Selectmen or Capital Planning Committee meetings about Minuteman funding.

The town also has a different process in terms of allowing people to speak at Town Meeting, and Bouquillon said he was not allowed to speak there, either. Instead, the town’s representative on the Minuteman School Committee made a presentation that was essentially neutral, though the School Committee member himself was in favor of the project, according to Bouquillon.

“It was a very difficult environment to get information out,” he said. “We did not have any kind of articulate, powerful advocates among elected officials and stakeholders in town government.”

Another factor may have been that Belmont High School was just accepted into the funding pipeline by the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA), so voters were facing two possible school projects within a relatively short time span. However, this was also true for Arlington, which passed the Minuteman measure, Bouquillon said.

Minuteman is up against a May 27 deadline to secure funding approval from its member towns or lose a promised grant of about $45 million from the MSBA. Bouquillon said on Wednesday that he planned to write the MSBA and request a 120-day extension “to try to change the hearts and minds of 30 voters” in Belmont (the swing that would have made the difference at Town Meeting). “We’re going to try to do it more person to person and hopefully hold some information sessions in Belmont for Town Meeting members,” he said.

If Minuteman receives the 120-day extension but Belmont again votes down the funding measure at a Special Town Meeting, Bouquillon said he would recommend to the Minuteman School Committee that the the district hold a district-wide referendum, where a simple majority of total voters in the member towns could approve funding. However, getting a revote in Belmont is preferable for several reasons, he said. Among them: the district would have to pay for the referendum, which could cost $100,000; summer is not the best time for a vote like this; and the towns that have already approved funding may be “pretty annoyed,” he said.

“We want to avoid that pathway as an option,” Bouquillon said. “People could campaign against the new building and it could backfire on the whole eight-year process.”

Fate of the current building site

Meanwhile, Minuteman has begun exploring how to make the best use of the 13-plus acres of land in Lexington where the current school sits. The space could be the site of new construction for public or private educational organizations that could partner with the high school. One such candidate is Middlesex Community College (MCC), which recently reached an agreement for Minuteman to serve as a satellite campus where Minuteman students can double-enroll and take MCC classes for college credit.

Thus far, six classes thus far have been approved for qualified Minuteman students, though Bouqillon said he expected this number to grow. Minuteman students will pay $87 per credit—less than half of what other MCC students pay, according to a Minuteman release. The dual-enrollment classes will be taught by Minuteman teachers who have been approved by MCC as members of the its adjunct faculty.

Minuteman has been in talks with other schools including UMass-Lowell and the UMass-Stockbridge School of Agriculture for similar collaborations, Bouquillon said. Public-private partnerships for facilities that would be open to the entire community are also under consideration, he said, adding that he hoped any construction will be funded in full by those partners.

The land belongs to the Minuteman district and any future use must be compatible with its education mission, and he will not recommend that any of it be sold, Bouquillon said. However, “when you think about the location of this property and its potential, to do nothing would not be intelligent,” he said.