‘We All Feel Really Good About It’: Finance Board Votes 8-0 In Favor of Full Saxe Building Project

After hearing from residents across a wide swath of the town as well as an advisor who described implications for New Canaan’s financial picture, officials on Tuesday night unanimously supported the proposed $18.6 million renovation and expansion at Saxe Middle School. Board of Finance members voted 8-0 in favor of the proposal, formally recommending a bond issuance to the Town Council to pay for it. The vote received applause from an estimated 150-plus people who packed into the Town Meeting Room for the finance board’s meeting, and marks the clearing of what’s been seen as the critical hurdle in a project that has galvanized parents of school-aged kids and others. The Town Council is expected to give the project its formal final approval on Nov. 19.

Letter: BOF Should Support Saxe Project

Three-quarters of the Town Council is in favor of the Saxe Building Project as proposed. It’s up to the Board of Finance now to vote. Funding approval must be completed by end of November in order for construction to begin on time. There has been much stalling and hemming and hawing that not enough time or due diligence has been done to make sure this project is the right one for our town. Most of our town officials have accepted that the auditorium and music rooms must be done now, but they are not in agreement that the 12 extra classrooms (net extra cost of $6.2 million) must be done as well.

Finance Board Will Hear Public Comments on Saxe at Nov. 10 Meeting

The Board of Finance will hear comments from the public at its regular meeting on Nov. 10—a widely anticipated date, as officials are expected to decide on funding for a capital project at Saxe Middle School. The finance board does not automatically or regularly include a public comments period on its agenda. Its chairman, First Selectman Rob Mallozzi, said he “absolutely” supports hearing from residents on such important matters. Mallozzi in emails over the weekend to parents who are advocating for a full, estimated $18.6 million building project at Saxe, proposed a public comment period where speakers would be allotted three minutes instead of the usual two.

‘On the Backs of Our Neediest Programs’: Seeing Saxe Middle School with Principal Greg Macedo

Greg Macedo walked a hallway toward the northwest corner of Saxe Middle School on a recent weekday morning, in what’s known as the “8th Grade Wing,” part of a 1997 expansion of the brick building at Farm and South. There, a freestanding office partition that stands five feet high—a bit shorter than the average height of a 13-year-old boy—“separates” the hallway from a 150-square-foot area never meant to serve as a classroom. Yet—in a far-reaching knock-on effect that has seen rising enrollment, new programming and state-mandated classes push “regular” classrooms into what had been designed as Special Education spaces—the now-1,328 students at a school built to accommodate 1,200 at most, have forced Macedo, Saxe’s principal, to push Special Ed programming into what had been office spaces for teachers, storage rooms and hallways. “We have balanced the space problems on the backs of our neediest programs,” said Macedo, looking over this makeshift classroom, cordoned off five years ago and including the assorted bouncy balls, mats, bean bags and trampolines that provide physical stimulation for kids on the autism spectrum. “Kids would not feel like they are in a classroom here,” he said, speaking from a similarly carved-out hallway space one floor up.

‘That Is Not Sustainable’: Finance Board Member Flags Town Spending, Scope of Saxe Proposal

New Canaan cannot sustain recent spending rates and, as the town addresses major capital needs such as at Saxe Middle School, hard decisions must be made lest the town burden taxpayers unduly or completely drain its coffers, a member of the Board of Finance said Tuesday. The educational system in New Canaan “did a fabulous job of educating my daughter and could not be more supportive,” finance board member George Blauvelt said during the group’s special meeting at Town Hall, “but we are looking at a series of really tough tradeoffs.”

“If we go forward with the Saxe program as currently proposed, then what in the town don’t we do? What will other constituents in the town—who are also residents in the town and taxpayers in the town—what don’t they get if we go forward with this?”

The comments come as a Board of Education-backed proposal to build a 2-story, 12-classroom addition at Saxe while renovating the auditorium and expanding music rooms—last estimated at about $17.1 million, though an updated figure is expected—makes its way to the finance board and other town bodies for approval. Board of Finance members stopped short of rejecting the full proposal, though more than one of them echoed Blauvelt that further study and discussion is needed—such as around enrollment projections—before funds are committed beyond renovating the Saxe auditorium (widely accepted as an absolute need). First Selectman Rob Mallozzi, who serves as the finance board’s chairman, framed the discussion as a way to share the group’s thinking with Board of Ed members—some of whom were in attendance, in addition to the superintendent of schools.