By Thane Grauel
WESTPORT — The Long Lots School Building Committee on Thursday voted to forward their recommendation for a new building to the first selectwoman.
The committee decided Oct. 5 to recommend “Concept C.” It would be an entirely new construction and put a baseball field and soccer field where the Westport Community Gardens have been for more than two decades. The gardens would have been relocated on the same campus.
Thursday’s meeting appeared to be a formality. Committee Chairman Jay Keenan, who also is a Representative Town Meeting member from District 2, said the town attorney told him they would have to meet again and vote to send the recommendation to the first selectwoman.
A motion made by member Don O’Day, RTM District 3, did that, but with the added recommendations that the community gardens be moved to the town’s Baron’s South open-space property and that a sustainable option for the new school be pursued.
The meeting likely was among the shortest of the year for a town body, lasting about 100 seconds from beginning to end.
“A one-minute meeting,” said Jennifer Johnson, an RTM candidate in District 9.
“That’s what happens when you don’t take public comment,” said John F. Suggs, a former RTM member also seeking a seat in District 9.
The crowd Thursday evening included about a dozen people besides commission members, down from the 40 or more seen previously.
Suggs said afterward that the proposed location of the gardens at Baron’s South, between Imperial Avenue and Compo Road South, is the site of contaminated fill from when the Westport Center for Senior Activities parking lot was expanded.
He said the ground dug from what had been Baron Walter Langer von Langendorff’s perfume laboratory areas and dumped on the proposed garden site in 2019 contained petroleum products, elevated arsenic levels, asbestos and more.
Thane Grauel grew up in Westport and has been a journalist in Fairfield County and beyond for 35 years. Reach him at editor@westportjournal.com. Learn more about us here.
The town wants to move the Community Gardens to the top of the 5,500 yards of contaminated construction fill that it illegally dumped in Barons South in 2018? That’s remarkably cruel.
Morley Boyd – what is even more disappointing is the leader of our town, the First Selectwoman, couldn’t be bothered to turn up to either meeting last night to listen to the community. Other leaders did.
Mr. Harrington, You have raised an important question that is troubling a lot of Westporters. Where is Jen Tooker and why wont she come to any of these Town Meetings and face her constituents on her decision to accept the LLSBC recommendations?
Instead she repeatedly sends out her flunky’s to take the heat for her. Not exactly a Profile in Courage.
It reminds me of when my twins first headed out to college. The sudden loss of both of them at the exact same time was so jarring for their mother and me that I took to sending them joking, funny “Dad texts” asking them to please send us “Proof of Life Pics.” You know, what kidnappers in the movies send of their victims.
I never thought we would end up in this same situation as a town but Jen Tooker, please phone home. Please send your constituents a “proof of life” pic. Take ownership of your terrible decision to destroy the community gardens and preserve. And explain yourself.
John F. Suggs
The leadership of this community by many members is mind bogglingly poor. This committee was formed to determine whether to build a new school or rehabilitate the old school. To determine a construction budget and review a design program for the requirements within the school. Yet, a committee that did not televise nor record their public meetings, did not take written minutes of the meetings for historical purposes, nor did share openly and honestly with the community, drawings and information that by law, is open to the public. Now this committee is making recommendations as to where the Community Gardens are to be relocated? Will they be selecting plant materials and species for the garden as well? Absolutely mind boggling !
I read a lot, I enjoy starting my mornings with 3-4 hrs of searching out the state of the world, which seems to be at an inflection point. Recently reading an article about the declining numbers of attendance at baseball fields in the last twenty years and the other night hearing on the news about record breaking attendance at basketball I felt I was living through a cultural shift in sports. Recently there was another article that caught my attention in the Harvard Gazette how gardening is one of the best forms of exercise as it requires the entire body and mind. I’m all for exercising our children and inculcating team work in our education system to create community and here we are at a cross roads of how those changes over time reveal themselves.
We all learned of the dangers of some sports like football concussions, heart stopping baseball pitches that reach the chest of a batter instead of the bat, etc. Pondering how to create our best efforts to build that valuable asset of teaching our children team work and community… It struck me that this Garden built by the community of adults with their children is clearly the best classroom we have to teach our children (and adults) civics.
Where else can young and old cooperate, spend time together, and learn from each other while exercising? Where else can we show our children where our food comes from and how to care for our earth that provides for us. Where else can we spend time with our children in their formative years and pass on our values so directly. Where else can we cooperate instead of compete. Where else would you spend time with neighbors you don’t otherwise have a chance to meet. Where else would our children be able to work, play, and exercise together, with an entire community working together to keep them safe. These gardens are our best classrooms!
This thought is nothing new, long time I have pondered how neighbors become communities and how to instill in our children values. How do we join young and old alike and create community. These community garden seem to be the answer in front of our noses.
There is always as many sides to an argument as there are people. I understand those that hold positions in our little town charged with guiding us through the tight rope walk of uncertain times. Keeping everyone safe. Building our infrastructure to accommodate our future needs while fending off our future problems. The easy route is to fall back on what is tried and true and already accepted and familiar. The real leaders evolve our town into the future. The best of them never forgets that it’s not their decision to decide for us but to listen. But they can’t hear you if you don’t have a voice, that’s what elections are for.
Don’t stop reminding them every chance you get. Vote.
Words of wisdom, Mark. And very thoughtully expressed.
Documents in Westport town records discussing the history of contamination, environmental investigation and remediation at Baron’s south where another garden is proposed, dating from 1998 to 2019, may be found at https://www.westportct.gov/government/baron-s-south-stockpile-2019.
A 2007 document in Westport town records which includes an environmental assessment and recommendations for remediation and ongoing environmental assessment of water and soil at Baron’s south may be found at https://www.westportct.gov/Home/ShowDocument?id=775. See Section 3.0, Environmental Review, pages 14-18/99.
I hope town officials and residents will read these documents as they consider allowing residents with children to grow and eat food from the site.
Some of the contaminants listed are persisent, can migrate, and are toxic in low doses. Plants may take up some of the contaminants through their roots and into the fruit or vegetable the plant produces.
In addition to these previous records, there is more recent public comment that contaminated soil was stockpiled at Baron’s south after it was moved from another site or sites in Westport.
Plans and budgets to put a garden on the site should include money and plans for thorough and transparent environmental and health assessments so that residents, especially children, remain safe and healthy if they eat food grown at Baron’s south.