Editor,
From my geezer perspective, I’ll provide a few comments regarding the proposed Ridgefield School District construction bond of almost $200 million. Many recent letters have championed the virtues of supporting this bond, mostly because it’s “good for the kids,” etc.
These letters are normally short and lack facts or supporting numbers. Frankly, those of us who have been around for a few decades have heard this song many times before.
For example, 24 years ago, the Ridgefield schools superintendent said at a public meeting that expanding the existing high school was not possible because the land behind it was a wetland. Guess what? Today, there are 58 new houses doing just fine back there.
We were also told that we badly needed a new construction bond to purchase land for schools. So we bought about 50 acres across the street from a long-time school insider, at about 300% percent of appraised value. This should have provided tons of land for school construction, but it looks like lots of it has morphed into a huge athletic field complex instead.
Our bond supporters are willing to admit that this bond (actually, two bonds) will cost the average homeowner something like $800 per year for 20 years, but they fail to mention that it will not retire a previous outstanding bond. We still have a previous bond to pay and this will take about 13 more years.
It is fairly obvious to me that the driving force behind this bond is Ridgefield’s unending quest for growth at any cost. It is well known that high-end schools attract buyers of expensive homes, which are now about $800,000 in the area. If history is our example, we can see what will transpire if this bond passes and three new schools are built: Ridgefield will once again expand its growth boundaries, many new developments will be approved, thousands (yes, thousands) of new invaders will arrive and then the roundabout fairy will fly in waving her magic wand and sprinkle new roundabouts over the area, for all of us to enjoy.
Craig Lynch
Ridgefield
