To the editor:

They say that politics makes strange bedfellows, and this was surely evident in the last two weeks, when two individuals with completely different political and social views than mine wrote letters to the editor opposing a new high school for the Bristol-Warren School District.

And while the reason for their opposition to the new high school was primarily monetary, I remain steadfast in my belief that we desperately need a new high school in the district, but that building it in the same location adjacent to a creek and atop wetlands would be the same foolish mistake that the town made in 1965 when they chose to build the high school on its present site.

As I've maintained in the past, investing in our public school system is one of the most important responsibilities of municipal government, and I have no qualms with my yearly tax bill increasing a few hundred dollars or more in order to give our students the most modern and functional schools possible, but I want to see that money spent in a more responsible way, and not used to build an environmental nightmare on top of an existing environmental nightmare.

The bottom line here is that the members of the school building committee need to start paying attention to the numerous citizens who have valid concerns about the plan to build a new high school, or the ballot initiative to fund this project is going to go down in flames when presented to the voters in November.

Mike Proto
245 Chestnut St.