By Bruce Burdett

At a pair of meetings last week, the School Building Committee won the support of both the School Committee and Board of Selectmen for their plan to build a new $97.3 million grade 5-12 school where the closed middle school now sits off Old County Road.

Still to be made is a decision on when to hold a special town meeting, followed by a town-wide election in hopes of securing the voter approval required to build the school. The project would need to win by two-thirds majority at the town meeting, and by simple majority in an election.

The committee favors setting a January 23 or 30 town meeting, followed by a town-wide vote on February 6 or 13. But selectmen said they need more information before setting those dates.

The town clerk notified selectmen that the cost of holding a separate special election would be approximately $10,000.

But that should be weighed against the fact that delaying the election from February to the town’s regular April elections could cost an added $400,000 in inflated construction costs, officials were told.

School Building Committee co-chairwomen Dianne Baron and Tracy Priestner said they are convinced that the school they propose is a good fit for Westport and that every effort has been made to keep costs in line. And they added that the cost of doing nothing would eventually be much higher.

“Our problems will not be solved by inaction,” Ms. Priestner said. “To push this down the road will only end up with this project costing much more.”

Rejection of the project would cost the town $40 million in funding from the Massachusetts School Building Authority (MSBA) and would make any hope of gaining state help in the future a long shot. She noted that Westport was one of only 13 school districts out of 111 applicants to be approved for this round of MSBA funding.

If this is voted down, she said Westport will be left with a 70-year-old Westport “which will require increased maintenance costs every year and which will need replacement within ten years at greatly increased cost,likely without any (MSBA) matching reimbursement.”

Furthermore, the town would be on the hook for the entire cost, rather than half, of demolishing the middle school, Ms. Baron said.

“This is an important milestone in the planning process and in moving this project forward for the town and our children for generations to come,” said Ms. Baron. “We look forward to sharing the details with residents to show how this is the time for Westport to embrace this project.”

Architect Jonathan Levi said that while the school that he showed in pictures and a recently completed model, “may look like a deluxe kind of school, we threaded the eye of the needle between quality, features and low cost of construction” that compares favorably to the cost of other school projects now in the works.

Of that $97.3 million cost, the town would be responsible for $58.3 million with the state paying the balance.

For the owner of a home valued at $400,000, the property tax cost to the homeowner would be $464 per year if the town opts for 25 year borrowing or $408 if borrowing is for 30 years.

“Less than the cost of a cup of coffee a day,” said selectman Brian Valcourt.

“Knee jerk reaction I’ve heard is, ‘Oh, why should I have to pay for that?’” he said.

But “one way or another you are going to have to pay for it … It will costs us tens of millions of dollars more if we decide to kick this can down the road.”

“We continue to hemorrhage kids our of the district,” said selectman Craig Dutra, and “part of the flight has to do with the perception of the facilities we are offering our kids. It behooves us to move aggressively, strongly and positively to get the rest of the town on board with this.”

And selectwoman Shana Shufelt called the need for approval, “absolutely a no-brainer (but) we have to get the word out.”

Nobody on either the School Committee or BOS spoke against the plan.

Audience member Jean Buck was the last to speak at Wednesday’s meeting and she praised the School Building Committee for its work.

She has no children in the town’s schools, Ms. Buck said, “but I have great appreciation for the labor, the effort, the concentration the ability to argue together, the whole sense of community that you’ve demonstrated to Westport …This is an amazing project that has brought a lot of people together.”