Decide Colburn School's Fate Now

The Finance Commission voted 12-3 this week to recommend passage of the tax override required to fund Westwood's proposed new library. I find myself wondering who opposed the measure, and whether their reasons for voting no are the same as mine.

Westwood's Colburn School Deteriorates

The main reasons for opposing the measure are clear and well articulated. Taxes and public debt have increased again and again as we have made our way through the Great Recession. Here at home, the town mismanaged construction of the new high school, at great cost. Hopes for Westwood Station turned to disappointment as Dedham's Legacy Place flourished next door. Despite careful management of the town's resources in many areas, we find ourselves chronically short of money, even though taxes have risen faster than the rate of inflation in recent years.

Because of the chronic shortage, the proposed override for the library becomes one in a long series: we know more will come. When your tax bill increases by about two hundred dollars every few years, and you already pay $400 per month, the prospect of more increases is discouraging. Raising taxes during a recession, when so many people already have to economize, is bad policy.

The arguments in favor of the new library are also well articulated. Tom Viti, the architects and the library board of trustees have assembled a strong set of plans. Attractive is the prospect of a new gathering place for our community, in the center of Westwood's historic district. If you have viewed the architect's sketches, you know that the new library building would add a lot to Westwood's sense of community. Its public space would augment our town and create new opportunities for social interaction among our citizens. It could bring a quiet retreat and a visually appealing space to our city center.

I say could bring because everything depends on disposition of the Colburn school. For library planners, the school is a nuisance that won't go away. It sits on the exact site of the proposed new library, and no one knows what to do with it. That's why Kevin McManus had to press so hard to raise the issue at the Finance Commission hearing on the library. The school has become an embarrassment and an impediment. The closer we move toward approval of the library plans, the less we want to think about it. Current uncertainty about the school represents a huge, glaring weakness in the town's plans for a new library.

The plans are impressive for their good intentions, costliness and failure to face facts about this building. At a cost of $180,000, the town wants to move the Colburn school a short distance to make way for the new library. Mothballed, it will sit on steel rails for the duration. When the new library is finished, Westwood plans to move the school again, this time to an undetermined location. The town estimates the total cost of this poor building's odyssey at about $300,000.

The building is already an eyesore. Since the Westwood school district moved its administrative offices from the Colburn school to the new high school in 2005, the formerly handsome structure has gone to seed. I used to think how great it would look with a little fixing up. Now it's a sad wreck. It attracts the eye now because time, weather and neglect have made it ugly.

Does anyone think that the wear and tear on this poor wooden structure, Westwood's portable, homeless historical landmark, during the upcoming two to three years will do anything but make the building's condition much worse? Instead of allocating $300,000 to fix the building up, we want to spend $300,000 on the Colburn school road show, a punishing process to make the old building permanently unusable.

We've seen how rapidly the building has declined during the last five years. Who will want to rehabilitate it when it has suffered five more years of neglect, half of it sitting on steel rails? At the Finance Commission hearing, the library director indicated that the Board of Selectmen could decide to sell the building. Who would want to buy it? In 2012 it will have no land, no foundation, no prospective use, no physical attractiveness, diminished structural soundness, countless code violations, and virtually no economic value at all. It would have more value as firewood than as an historical landmark.

When the realities we won't face today sink in three or four years from now, this once fine, vibrant structure will reach the destination we have mapped out for it: an appointment with the wrecking ball. We can't acknowledge that sad end during the library approval process, though. Residents would not approve the new building if it means destruction of the old. So we defer a decision about the Colburn school and hope that something will come up.

I have some ideas about how to make the Colburn school an attractive city landmark. I'm sure other residents have had similar ideas as we've watched the building deteriorate in our city center. If we have the vision to plan a new library, certainly we can muster the foresight required to make some reasonable plans for this handsome, well constructed example of Victorian architecture. It's not yet beyond saving, but chances are no one will want to save it after it has spent two years on the rails.

Remember that car that gave you so many good memories? You courted your spouse in it, went on family vacations in it. Put it up on blocks in the backyard for a year or two and then see how you feel about it. We are about to put the Colburn school up on blocks, and after that we'll consign it to the junkyard. Who will want to refurbish it in 2013, when we have a new library to occupy and operate? Even if the Board of Selectmen could find a buyer, where would the new owner put it? If we can't decide on a new location now, why would we think resolution of this difficult choice will arrive three years from now? It won't. We'll have the same problem in front uf us, but with a broken down building that, for all its good memories, can't be brought back into useful service.

My concluding argument is simple. Make a decision now. Don't blow $180,000 and more on a plan that leaves the Colburn school headed for destruction at the end of the road. If we want to preserve this old building, let's decide how we want to do it, now. We can't pretend or hope that this problem will get easier, or that the solution may appear through some serendipitous set of circumstances. Yes, serendipity does have a role in our lives, but it's not going to solve this one. This problem requires collective vision on the part of our community. We should bring that vision into focus now, before we approve construction of a new library. If we cannot make a decision, we should not approve the plans.

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See also the second article in this two-part series, Options for Colburn School.