Amazing Similarities Between
John W. Chorley Elementary School
and
The Orange County Government Center
The vigorous debate over the fate of the government center has prompted many people to question the way that Middletown School officials misled the public about the wisdom of replacing the Chorley Elementary School, Orange County’s other Paul Rudolph building. Every discredited justification used to promote demolition and replacement of the government center was also used in Middletown.
The need for a new building was exaggerated.
The district’s 2008 demographic study predicted1500 new students by 2014, but State Education Department figures show that the enrollment in Middletown schools has increased by only 227 students since 2004, eight years ago.
The cost to taxpayers was understated.
We were promised repeatedly that the new school would add zero to our taxes and that much of the money would come from the State’s Contract for Excellence, money that could have been spent directly on education. As a result, we have watched our school taxes go up by more than 20% in the last couple of years while the district has laid off more than 150 employees, making our children suffer.
Existing structures in Middletown were allowed to run down.
Two school buildings in Middletown, Chorley and Memorial, were deliberately neglected. When Dr. Eastwood arrived in Middletown, the Memorial building was viable, in compliance with state regulations, and occupied by district offices. Now its value is placed at $1.
Architects vastly over estimated the renovation costs.
The RSA architectural firm, the same company that profited from designing the new school, estimated the cost of renovating Chorley at $40 million, a bigger sum than the $35.3 million estimate for renovating the much larger and more complex government center.
The public was given vague, incomplete, and misleading information.
There were no official public hearings on the new school project. Pre-referendum fliers distributed by the district neglected to mention the demolition of Chorley. The referendum was buried in late December, just before Christmas, drawing only about 600 voters to the polls. Conflicting statements were made about the fate of Truman Moon School and the existence of mold and leaks at Chorley.
Unwarranted political pressure was put on opponents of the project.
Crucial board resolutions to advance the project, like approval of land purchase, architects, SEQRA, and building design, were not on board agendas, but were added at the last moment for immediate approval. The design of the new school was not put out to bid. Instead, the architects were quietly given information in 2005 about plans to build a new school for a “special needs” population, three years before the idea was mentioned publicly in 2008. Nor was the public ever told that the State wanted Chorley to be preserved as an historic landmark.
While it is too late to stop construction of a $63 million school that we do not need and that we can not afford, it is not too late to prevent the demolition of the old school. There are compelling reasons for doing so. Chorley is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places, making it eligible for economic incentives. The layout of the building makes it attractive for many alternative uses, none of which were ever considered by the district. And the contractors can not possibly demolish the building for the amount of money the district has budgeted for the job, while protecting our health and the environment from the toxic dust that demolition would create.
There is still time for a vigorous debate in Middletown, before we destroy a part of our city’s unique history to put up a parking lot.
Posted May 10, 2012
A map of the route that the Heritage Trail will take through Middletown
Garbage, Gangsters, and Greed on Vimeo
Fred Isseks