Last week’s Phoenix featured a front-page article highlighting concerns raised by the Bristol Planning Board regarding the chronic flooding in neighborhoods surrounding Mt. Hope High School and how the flooding could be exacerbated should the new high school be built.

Since the construction of the high school in the mid 1960s, I and my neighbors have been plagued by flooded yards and basements caused not only by the high school, but also by unbridled development in the Broadcommon Road, Metacom Avenue, and Gooding Avenue areas in and around the Silver Creek Watershed. And while the current flooding problems caused by the high school were the result of poor decisions by uninformed and inept politicians in the early 1960s, our current town leaders have chosen to go down the same path of their predecessors by moving forward with an ill conceived plan to cause more environmental damage to homeowners living in the vicinity of the high school, and build it in an area that is not suitable to construct a storage shed, never mind a multi-million-dollar high school.

There’s no doubt that the current Mt. Hope High School is in deplorable condition and does not provide an environment for our students that is conducive to learning, but to continue down the current path of building the new high school in such an environmentally sensitive area is not just reckless, but downright foolish, and is a terrible disservice to the Bristol and Warren students who utilize it and will ultimately pay for it.

Mike Proto
245 Chestnut St.