The time is not now

The Pinkerton Academy Board of Trustees has decided that the timing is right to break ground on a new "Freshman Academy" building.

The purpose of the building, according to school officials, is to help freshmen make the adjustment to life in high school and continue efforts to give the school a "smaller" feel.

While the objectives may be laudable, the timing is terrible and the message sent to residents of Derry, Chester and Hampstead is worse.

Pinkerton Academy is an enormous school with a population (in excess of 4,000) greater than that of many New Hampshire towns. It provides its students with a well-rounded education that rivals any in the Granite State. We applaud efforts by any school to continue to improve the educational experience for its students.

But at the same time, this "steak" education is being provided to students from towns on "hamburger" budgets.

At a time when Derry officials are facing tough budget choices when it comes to essential town services and Derry school officials are working had to make sure their budget is not decimated by cuts to state aid in 2011, the Pinkerton Trustees have decided to spend somewhere between $22-31 million (the final numbers are not yet available) on a new building that is clearly more luxury than necessity.

According to Harry Burnham, president of the Pinkerton Board of Trustees, the new building will house freshmen for four core classes each day, providing needed additional classroom space. However, the building would also host a cafeteria, conference rooms, technology space, and administrator and staffing offices. In addition, it is planned that space in the new building will be used to update and expand Pinkerton's Career and Technical Education Department, including room for a new culinary arts program.

To their credit, the Trustees removed a 3,000-square-foot artificial turf field from the plan. It will be included in a future project.

But this project is still overkill, at a time when the sending towns (not to mention the feeder school districts) are struggling to balance budgets.

The message being sent to the sending towns is clear — we want the best and we will have it and there is nothing you can do about it.

This new building is a prime example of why Pinkerton's contract with Derry and the other sending towns, one which frees the school from the pesky inconvenience of taxpayers accountability, needs to be done away with.

In 2008, Pinkerton Trustees decided that they would delay construction of the new building because the sending towns were struggling with a tough economy and interest rates on bonds were high. The interest rates are now more attractive, but the towns are still struggling. This project should have been put off indefinitely.

Back to the drawing board

At some point Londonderry will have additional workforce housing.

Or maybe not.

More questions than answers came out of this week's town council public hearing on the state's workforce housing mandate. The primary question seems to be exactly how much housing stock in Londonderry already qualifies as "affordable" under the state's formula.

At issue is a lowering of property values across the board in Londonderry.

The Londonderry Council was right to ask Planning Department officials to go back and recalculate the levels of affordable housing stock in the town. Londonderry officials would be wise not to enact bylaws making it easier for workforce housing developments to be constructed if they do not have to. While the town certainly does not want the reputation of being snobbish about lower income families moving in, easing development bylaws opens the town up to a myriad of complications and enforcement headaches.

Due diligence is required. Recheck the numbers and, if additional workforce housing is required, then move forward with a well thought out plan.

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