By Gretchen Webster

WESTPORT — On a sunny May morning, seven gardeners worked their plots in the Westport Community Gardens, adjacent to Long Lots Elementary School on Hyde Lane. 

Irises and other flower bloomed, and small tomato and other vegetable plants were staked up and reaching toward the sun early in the growing season.

The tranquility last week belied the controversies that have engulfed the gardens since plans to build a new Long Lots school began evolving more than a year ago.

The gardeners working there last Wednesday morning didn’t know what the future holds for the two-decade-old community plots, which will likely be plowed under once construction of the new school starts. Town officials hope to begin construction before the end of the year.

But they’re not giving up just yet. Spring is here and seeds need to be planted, weeds pulled and seedlings watered.

The timetable for the new school and the future location of the gardens is unclear, pending a formal site plan. But the town keeps imposing new rules that are hurting the gardens even before they are closed down, according to Louis Weinberg, chairman of the Westport Community Gardens Steering Committee.

Weinberg lately has not been as visible as during early stages of debate over the gardens’ future, which erupted  about a year ago as the Long Lots School Building Committee considered options for the new school, and the Planning and Zoning Commission later endorsed a revised 8-24 application for the project.

Weinberg said he found the series of events leading to the gardens’ possible demise “incredibly disappointing.” He called the process “poor governance at best” and “lack of leadership. … There was no effort to work it out,” he said.

Now, Weinberg is speaking out about a new regulation that would prohibit gardeners from visiting their plots during school hours. It’s just another way to hurt the gardeners, he said.

The new security measure to prevent outsiders from school grounds during hours when classes are in session would include a ban on entering the fenced-off gardens from 7:30 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. But a petition by gardener Toni Simonetti filed with the Representative Town Meeting asking that the policy either be modified, or rejected, to preserve gardeners’ access under current rules, has delayed implementation of the new policy.

The RTM is scheduled to consider Simonetti’s petition at its next meeting, set for 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 4, in the Town Hall auditorium.

So the gardeners were still working their plots mid-morning last Wednesday.

During discussions of implementing the new security regulation on school grounds, “the gardeners were vilified,” with some residents saying they feared gardeners armed with picks and shovels on school grounds, which Weinberg called a ridiculous notion.

“They say hate has no place in this town,” he said, “but they’ve done nothing but spread hate toward people who have done nothing but good to this town.” 

For years, anyone joining the Westport Community Gardens organization has had to undergo background checks, including a review of sex offender records, Weinberg said. Having pre-screened members working in the gardens, which are locked to outsiders, actually provides some protection for the school, he added.

Weinberg has experience as a security expert for schools, and was the consultant to the Norwalk public school system for its emergency response plan. In that role, he visited locations including Columbine, Colo., and other places where mass shootings and serious school security breaches have occurred to research and formulate the Norwalk plan.

Weinberg said he is very aware of threats posed to school campuses, and he believes the Westport gardeners pose no danger to children at Long Lots or any other schools.

He had no comment about whether Long Lots students might face safety risks from the many workers for contractors and subcontractors who will be on campus building the new school while classes continue in the old school for the duration of the project.

Other gardeners Wednesday morning showed more sadness than anger at the prospect of losing the gardens.

Michelle Reiner, who recently lost a family member, became emotional when asked about the future of her garden, where she grows an array of vegetables.

“I come here every day … this is a peaceful place for me,” she said. 

“I hope we’re still here next year,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I feel if people came to see it, how can they not like it?” she said, looking around at plants pushing up in her eight small garden plots and blossoming flowers.

Alfred Gwilliam, who is 90, was busy tending his parsnips and flowers. “Something to eat and something to look at,” he said.

“I would hate to see this go,” he said of the gardens. He is concerned that even if the gardens are given a new site, he said conditions such as how much sunshine the location gets also must be considered. “It’s bright and sunny all day here,” he said, and won’t be if the gardens are relocated to the adjacent Long Lots Preserve, which is shaded by trees. “We need a sunny spot,” he said. “It’s very important.”

Gardener Gladys Martone has lived in Westport for 40 years and her family owns the local hair salon, Headliners.

“We’re Westport people,” she said of her fellow gardeners. “I really love it here.”

If the policy prohibiting gardening during school hours is approved, she will be at a loss because she takes care of her granddaughter after school. “This is the only time I can come,” she said Wednesday morning.

Like Weinberg, she doesn’t understand why the Long Lots faculty and students don’t interact with the gardeners, and incorporate into their curriculum lessons from the garden, which Weinberg said is a model of sustainability.

“These gardens are absolutely a model of environmental restoration,” he said. “We could be teaching kids in this school how important the environment is.”

“And it would get them away from their phones,” Martone added.

And for Reiner, the controversy could be resolved by reviewing the construction plans with skilled architects, so the new school and the gardens both can be comfortably accommodated on the large Hyde Lane property.

“Why can’t they find someone smart enough to figure this out?” she said.

Freelance writer Gretchen Webster, a Fairfield County journalist for many years, was editor of the Fairfield Minuteman and has taught journalism at New York and Southern Connecticut State universities.