By Thane Grauel

WESTPORT — A request for two modular classrooms outside Long Lots Elementary School, where enrollment is burgeoning and every nook and cranny has been maximized for teaching space, has not had an easy ride.

While funding for two portable classrooms for Coleytown Elementary sailed relatively unscathed through the approval process a year ago, the $600,000 request for Long Lots modulars has encountered a far bumpier road.

Over the last month, the request squeaked by the Board of Education and Board of Finance with 4-3 votes.

On Thursday night, the Finance and Education committees of the Representative Town Meeting — the town body with ultimate say on funding matters — voted to recommend the full RTM approve just $400,000.

That would roughly cover two years’ use of the classrooms instead of four, including up-front installation costs.

The committees’ votes are recommendations to the full RTM, and are not binding.

The votes came after a three-hour discussion that was at times difficult.

While education officials and parents noted that the Long Lots space crunch is real, RTM members appeared to give the matter harsher scrutiny than during its recent review of the drastic rezoning of Saugatuck.

Matthew Mandell, District 1, said he was surprised to have gotten emails from parents saying, “Don’t do this.”

“It seems we’ve a bleeding patient here, and we’re just putting Band-Aids on it, rather than taking care of the situation that needs to be addressed, which is we have an imbalance of our population of our town that probably needs to be addressed,” he said.

“Why aren’t we waiting to see what this capacity study is, so that we can really have a rational decision on where we are and what we’re going to do, and two, when are you going to redistrict? I don’t want to hear maybe September 2025, I would like to hear yeah, we are going to do it so that we as the RTM are the ones that are going to pull the trigger on whether we want to spend this money or not, know what’s going to be going on,” he said.

“I don’t want to hear two years from now, ‘Oh, you know that Greens Farms needs more modulars because, well, more people have moved into that area,’ ” Mandell added.

“So, what’s up?” he asked Supt. of Schools Thomas Scarice.

“You missed a lot,” replied Scarice, who has said that comprehensive redistricting of the school district is not possible until 2025.

“Two hundred parents from Long Lots signed a co-email to say they support the modulars,” he said. “All eight of our schools’ PTA presidents co-signed a letter also supporting this.”

Scarice said he was sure whatever feedback Mandell had was not a preponderance of opinion.

“I’m not against redistricting,” Scarice said. “I’m against rushed redistricting.”

Other RTM members expressed concerns about the funding, and the timeline for redistricting.

Board of Education Chairwoman Lee Goldstein said she had no problem with appropriating two years’ funding instead of four for the modulars, but took issue with some of the comments.

“I will say, this whole wagging fingers and stern admonitions in reports and the forcing action is pretty insulting,” she said.

“And unwarranted for a board that has been moving really quickly with this,” Goldstein added.

Thane Grauel, executive editor, grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond more than three decades. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.