BACKGROUND:WESTON
CENSUS AND SCHOOL/TOWN PLANNING IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER...LINK
TO U.S. CENSUS 2000 DATA.
This is where
it all began (l.) and link to reports on "Impact of Sewage Treatment on
the Character of Weston" at right.
WEDNESDAY,
JANUARY 18, 1995 (WESTPORT NEWS): On the left is the Town Engineer
describing the septic systems at the Schools; right is a suggested place
to locate the tertiary treatment plant if such a solution is considered.
"We may have room for expansion (on School Road), but it needs more study"
he said.
It was January
1995...
For those paying attention in January
1995, during the first go-round of "Joint School-Town Facilities Planning"
efforts, this information will not come as news. One Saturday morning
in Town Hall (shown above) at a "Joint... Committee" meeting, in January
of 1995, the Town Engineer had news that was most distressing.
A member of the Building Committee is reported to have said that the State
of Connecticut can "shut down the schools" if there is a problem with the
old systems there. D.E.P., according to the Town Engineer, wanted
to see a plan from the Town showing how it might deal with future expansion
at the schools. His recommendation, if memory serves, was to place
a tertiary treatment plant in Bisceglie Park or on School Road and no doubt
make other improvements to the septic fields as required.
"There are no more children"...
That winter finding out how many
children resided in our Town became an issue. It was smack in the
middle of the decade between U.S. Census of Population 1990 and what was
to become "U.S. Census 2000" now completed (and getting out of date, perhaps).
Demographers were projecting a continuation of dropping birth rates in
wealthy countries (as more women went to work during peak years of fertility).
State estimates prior to that first Census of Children
(1995)...
The State of Connecticut estimate
for children under five years of age in Weston was, if memory serves, somewhere
in the range of 475 little persons. This was considered a big number
at that time. A prior addition to Hurlbutt just completed was totally
occupied in the space of time of one school year!
(NOTE--EXPANSION #1--4 CLASSROOMS:
The Board of Education had reduced that proposed addition from 8 rooms
[including 4 finished and 4 unfinished] to 4 finished rooms only
over the recommendation of a committee representing Town Boards and employees
knowledgeable on the subject of real estate and growth--this was the period
of time when Weston was ahead of its neighbors, having anticipated the
need for elementary capacity before other communities did.)
No overall Plan...still a data gap
But where was our plan--long range
or even short range? At this time, a "Census of Children '95" in
behalf of the then Board of Selectmen was undertaken (by the author of
this "About Town" website). As already noted above, the Hurlbutt
P.T.O. (and other P.T.O.'s, too) sent out the same census forms to their
constituencies, and together, the Town and the School community, plus aid
from the Assessor's information as a secondary source, without double-counting
anybody, arrived at a number of children under the age of 5 years living
in Weston in the summer of 1995--that number was 808. Remember that,
as noted above, official demographers were estimating the same cohort to
total only 475.
(NOTE: EXPANSION #2 consisted
of a new library at Hurlbutt and new staff space ("Core" building--or as
some said, "Corridor Building"), conversion of old staff space to classrooms--as
well as new rooms created out of either too small or too large spaces at
Weston Middle School. Also included in this effort was construction
of a new Board of Education Headquarters Building on School Road [at the
site of the old portables/Weston UNION]--removing the Board of Education
from Weston Middle School, thus freeing up a whole wing, practically, gaining
yet more teaching space).
Weston tidalwave breaking...
Another slightly different yet similar
Town Census in 1997 showed only a minor downturn (but not continued expanding
upward growth trend) in the numbers of children alive and well and living
in Weston--just two years after the first Census of Children. Only
at this point did anyone truly recognize that a tidalwave of children was
approaching the Weston School System. The Board of Selectmen acted.
They called upon the architect-planner of the second school expansion
(see EXPANSION #2 above)--to propose a new solution. (Phase One
or was it Phase Two of that original multiphase plan had the Board of Education
Headquarters placed in the to-be converted Bus Garage --not as the Plan
was actually implemented--in its own, new building further up School Road).
June '98: The big meeting in Weston Middle School...
A noisy crowd in June 1998
rejected the quickly developed Board of Selectmen options, which first
identified the septic disposal problem for the general public. And informed
they were soon enough! It was at this point that "No Sewage Plant..."
(or was it "No Sewers...") became a rallying cry. That "plant" had
been suggested for either School Road or Bisceglie Park. In March
of 1999 the Board of Education was still looking for the "out of the box"
thinker, and selecting yet another architect-planner. The community was
divided about how to approach the impending innundation of the schools--should
we build a new high school somewhere and convert the older buildings on
School Road to lower grades...or should we build a "3-4-5 school" on campus
and fill in wetlands, overcrowd the center of Town...or should we do nothing
and wait for the storm to subside naturally? And there were more scenarios
to pick from, further fragmenting the population.
Back to the drawing boards with a new planner...
Please click here
to read of the work of School Facilities Planners leading up to their proposal
for a School Road campus plan--and then the plan itself plus visual representations
(Option
4A).
After the new planner proposed what
the Town and School Board wanted to hear--that we could makes changes to
school policy, rework roads and fields and manage to maintain excellence
...the other shoe dropped--or was it shoes, plural? First, the estimate
for this reworking of our school system was expected to total $70,000,000,
and second, we would probably need sewers in order to accomodate the density
of new construction and pavement. (NOTE: This is my interpretation
of the proposal--a more than standing-room only crowd in the high school
auditorium voiced its displeasure with the idea for sewers.)
The sewage treatment issue...
In the interim, the Planning and
Zoning Commission updated the Town Plan (as required by the State of Connecticut).
The Town Plan of Conservation and Development 2000 as adopted June 30,
2000
is now recommending off-campus school
development (if necessary to avoid installing infrastructure such as sewers
or public water supply pipes). A "Select Committee"
was
appointed by the Board of Selectmen to find a way to deal with effluent
from the school complex without necessitating sewerage.
And naturally, it was time for a
new town census--as the U.S.
Census of Population and Housing 2000 was not ready in a timely fashion...click
here
to see the Town/School Census 2000 questions.
To be continued...did you save the
"No Sewage Plant" signs from a few years ago? Are the arguments for
and against tertiary treatment (as opposed to sewer line to Norwalk, pro
and con) going to be revived? Any new ideas?