To the editor:

I've studied the Westport school issue a lot. Putting the high school and middle school under the same roof makes all kinds of sense — one maintenance department, one auditorium, one septic system, on and on. Let's not make the same expensive mistake we made building separate fire and police stations.

Some of you may remember "Cash for Clunkers.” In 2009, the government gave you $4,000 for that rusty old car you've been hanging on to for too long, if you bought a new efficient car. 

This is like "Cash for Clunkers.”  I'm sorry to say, we've got two clunkers:

1. A high school close to the end of it's usable life and staggeringly expensive to fix year after year. We'll have to replace it within 10 years.

2. A middle school so dangerous that the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, won't let us use it, and that would cost $52 million to fix. The building and ground around it are costing us $100,000 a year to maintain and will cost millions to knock down, truck away, and bury someplace as toxic waste.

This is a 2 for 1 deal friends. For decades, part of your state tax money has gone into the state school-building fund. 

We've just hit the lottery, the state will pay out $38 million. 

That's over $7 grand per Westport household. $7 grand. 

The money won't be there next year. It'll go to Boston or Worcester or somewhere else, not to Westport. Let's not have to pay for two new schools without state help.

Let's be smart. Take the cash now. Get rid of the clunkers.    

Thanks for reading, and voting,

Jeff Bull  

Westport