To the editor:

As my friends know, I was, until fairly recently, strongly opposed to the new school building proposal which comes up for a vote on February 27. It was not because I don’t support the best possible education for other people’s children and grandchildren or because I don’t want my taxes raised. It was because I thought education is more about what goes on inside buildings than about the buildings themselves.

I still believe that. But, through attending open meetings, reading letters to the editor, digging into facts, and engaging in discussions with folks on both sides of the matter, I have come to the conclusion that it would be extraordinarily short-sighted and self-defeating for the town to turn down the very well thought out proposal made by our fellow townsfolk on the committee.

I have come to see that I was mistaken in believing that proponents were motivated by naïve beliefs that the best education happens only in the best school buildings or “if you build it they will come.” What the School Building Committee has done, in fact, is to make lemonade out of lemons. The committee has taken the calamitous discovery of EPA-prohibited levels of PCBs at the middle school building and, through working with the MSBA, turned it into an opportunity to provide a new improved facility for the middle school, the high school, the recreation community, and the community at large at a discount of 40 percent from what it would have cost without the $38,000,000 being contributed by the state.

Considered only from a financial point of view, I am now convinced it would be foolish in the extreme to waste this opportunity. But, of course, as regards improving education, voting for this proposal is not enough. Happily we have many citizens and organizations in town that will continue to work to help make sure that we constantly improve what goes on in the new building as well.

Wendy H. Goldberg

Westport