Address the Library Proposal's Glaring Weakness

Too much of nothing
Can make a man ill at ease.
                             ~ Bob Dylan

Your neighbors might ask you, how can you oppose this project, when we've been planning it for ten years? We've already invested a lot of money in these plans. I'd turn the question around and ask, how can we plan a new library for ten years, at such a high cost, and come up with a plan for Colburn school that's no better than this one? From the earliest proposal in 2000, we knew that a new library would affect the Colburn school. In 2004, a year before the school district administration moved their offices to the new high school, we knew the building would stand empty in 2005. So it has stood for nearly five years. We have had five years to decide what to do with this empty landmark; and this is the best we can do: mothball the building, put it on rails, move it again, and then decide what to do? That's not a plan - that's procrastination.

It's plainly procrastination to let a well constructed, historic building deteriorate for so long, then spend so much nmoney on a plan that's not actually a plan. Everything about the building says don't let me go downhill anymore. Please don't let this happen to me. Everything about the library directors' proposal says we don't k now what to do with the building. We want to push the problem down the road to see if someone else can solve this nuisance for us. The proposal might not be so wasteful if we were not talking about $300,000 in extra cost. The proposal might not be so insulting if we were not talking about a building that stood as Westwood's handsome historical symbol for so many decades.

Do you want to be among the voters who condemn the Colburn school to destruction?

What will we all say to future residents when they ask why it had to be torn down? What does it say about our town that we let this landmark go to rot while we busily plan a new building to take its place? Will we explain that we took it down because we couldn't figure out what to do with it? Let's not deceive ourselves. If we don't decide what to do with the Colburn school now, during this spring's decision process, we will see the inevitable result: Colburn school as a pile of scrap lumber to be trucked away from Westwood's city center.

A sure sign of procrastination is the library board's willingness to transfer responsibility for the Colburn school to the Board of Selectmen. Why should the Board of Selectmen be able to solve the problem - to market the building successfully - when the entire town failed to reach a decision on the issue for six years? The question does not belong to the Board of Selectmen. It belongs to the library directors and to all of Westwood's voters. The Board of Selectmen has plenty to do without marketing the Colburn school. If that's the school's intended destiny, let the library directors market the building now.

Here's an anecdote to illustrate what's actually happening here. At the Finance Commission hearing on the proposed library, the library board did not want to discuss the Colburn school. They did so only when commission member Kevin McManus made a pointed request that they address the question. The library director outlined plans for the school, and discussed efforts to preserve memories of the school's place in our town's heritage. To do that, the new library will contain a photographic display to document the school's history. That gave the game away. You don't need a photographic display to commemorate a well kept, vibrant and useful historical landmark. You need a photographic display to commemorate a building that fell victim to progress, a building we destroyed to make way for something new.

We don't have to follow this path, though. We don't have to view pictures of the school in a glass case. Westwood can preserve this building, the real thing - to appreciate the symbol of our town, not remember it in paper images. We just have to withhold our approval from a plan that relegates the school to more rot.

What will happen to the school if we approve this proposal? Here is a scenario that is altogether too likely. We'll remove the building from its foundation and place it on steel rails until the new library is finished. Before we move it a second time, we'll have the building inspected to see if it is structurally sound and safe to move. This inspection will be the first of many. We all know the inspection regime here in Massachusetts. Eventually it will fail one or more inspections: fire, electrical, plumbing, structural strength, overall safety. If it remains a public building, it must meet handicapped access requirements and developing environmental standards. When the building's shortcomings are identified, we'll enter a long discussion that focuses on the cost of repairs, who should shoulder the costs, and to what purpose. The question of purpose returns us to the very one we can't figure out now: what do we want to use the building for?

The end of the discussion is predictable enough: the building will be judged unsafe. Once that assessment is made, the rest follows. Town officials sign the necessary forms, call the wrecking crew, give their final approval, and watch the building go down. The entire process follows standard procedures. No one is responsible for the outcome because the town has no choice - the building is unsafe. We'll say we did our very best to save the building, that age caught up with it. We truly tried, but the building became unsafe. What could we do?

If we adopt the current plan, then, we plan to spend $300,000 to preserve the school rather than tear it down on the spot. That plan is evasive and therefore dishonest. If we can't solve the problem now, we certainly can't solve the problem five years from now, when the building has undergone so much punishment. If we can't raise $500,000 to rehabilitate the building now, why should we have more success in five years, when rehabilitation will require twice that amount? Rather than spend $300,000 to put the school on rails and move it twice, why not sell the building now and add the proceeds to the library fund? We can do better than this proposal. We can do better than pretend. Honestly.

Westwood residents don't want to see Colburn school torn down. Tax questions aside, most of us don't want to stand in the way of a new library either. We do want honesty in the board's proposal for a new library. After the Westwood High School debacle, the board has taken care to act in good faith with the rest of its proposal. The proposal's not untruthful about the explicit elements of the project: its cost, its methods of funding, or its benefits. It's dishonest because it pretends that a $300,000 plan to move the school (twice!) will save the structure for future town residents to enjoy. Anyone who looks at the building can see that it's nearly past saving. Every hot summer, cold winter, and wet spring brings more deterioratioun, less will on our part to arrest the implacable process of weathering.

Do we want this new library so much that we're willing to consign this once-handsome building to the lumber heap? If the answer is yes, let's at least be honest about it. If the answer is no, if we don't want the new library to destroy the old school, let's decide how to preserve this landmark now. We've waited long enough to figure this one out. Vote no at the special town meeting on March 8. Vote no in the town election on April 27. Vote no and no again until we have a reasonable, honest plan for Westwood's central historical landmark.