Editor’s note: The following letter was written to Planning and Zoning Commission members, and submitted to the Westport Journal for publication.

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P&Z commissioners: 

We feel the need to publicly express our reaction to Monday’s meeting. 

One thing we all unanimously agree on is how desperately we need a new school for our children and for this town. We have heard from professionals and local constituents alike that the conditions in the current Long Lots building are deteriorating — leaking windows, dangerously failing HVAC and massive building inefficiencies/capacity issues among them. 

More importantly, they have all also stressed that there is a finite amount of time remaining for the existing building to be habitable. We trust that you would thus also agree that further delays to the existing timeline will put our children at risk. 

Kim Ambrosio and the amazing teachers at LLS continue to do an amazing job at maintaining a good “quality of life” for students during this time — but they deserve decisive action and our unanimous support to know that we see them, we support them and we are doing everything in our power to ensure that there is light peeking from the end of a short tunnel. 

We, of course, sympathize immensely with the members of the community garden. They have a right to feel angry and frustrated that a piece of land they have worked for years could be damaged during construction and ultimately moved — especially when they’ve built such a beautiful community. 

But as was explained Monday night, it is well within the purview of the town to reclaim the land should it be deemed necessary, and we simply must prioritize what makes sense and is safest for the children of Long Lots Elementary. The children must now, and always, be first on our minds. 

For this reason, just as Commissioner Cohn expressed concern over abandoning the several hundred community garden members, we too are concerned that prioritizing those individuals means abandoning not only the 700-plus students and faculty at Long Lots and Stepping Stones, but also the 1,700-plus children that register for soccer each fall and spring and use every inch of the Long Lots fields every day of the week. 

This is especially true since the term “community garden” might be considered a misnomer. This garden is shared by a very small and finite number of people within our community; it is fenced off, locked, open only to members and it does nothing for the Long Lots students, their curriculum or the school itself. 

That being said, we still maintain that the fate of the gardens should and will be explored — but that is simply not our, or your, mandate at this moment and frankly it shouldn’t be taking this much oxygen out of a conversation that’s mainly about our school and the children therein. 

What we should collectively be focused on is a timely and fiscally responsible plan so the new school build proceeds safely, on schedule, and without a single avoidable delay. 

Our other area of focus should be the valid concerns expressed by the neighbors to Long Lots. While we maintain that the noise and nuisance of construction is not a reason to object to the 8-24 put forth by our selectwomen, we would like to strongly voice that every care should be taken to minimize any negative environmental or traffic impact that the rebuild may have on nearby residents. 

We trust that the professionals on the project will pull on their many years of experience to ensure that every consideration is given to these families, their property and their wellbeing. Neighbors of LLS are neighbors to us all and we want to ensure that they feel safe throughout this process. That being said, these considerations and deliberations are for a future date and are not germane to the proposal before you and should thus not preclude you from voting to move the 8- 24 forward. 

Lastly, we would be remiss if we did not call out what we perceived to be an unmistakable favoritism for certain attendees to the meeting Monday night. At the top of the public comment portion, individuals from the community gardens were being called on by first name only and often by nickname. There was an evident rapport there and it took over four hours of these speakers voicing the same opinion repeatedly — and at length — before we heard a single person speak a different point of view. 

What we — and hundreds of fellow parents — need to know is: If the building committee comes back on Jan. 8 with answers to questions regarding the gardens that aren’t what supporters and sympathizers would like to hear, OR would pose a delay to the construction of the school and cause the children undue harm, is P&Z prepared to put our children first and issue a positive report all the same? 

Thank you for your time. We very much look forward to the meeting on Jan. 8.

Sarah Morrisson

Veronica Tysseland

Sandra Rose 

Written on behalf of “Parents for a New LLS”

P.S.:

Regarding the importance of dedicated green space — which we wholeheartedly support — we would like to propose a compromise: Let us incorporate a garden into the recreational space of the new school footprint — a state-of-the-art garden with native plants, overseen by the school, accessible to the students, woven into the curriculum, and even used for the cafeteria. 

Since many voiced their concern over the loss of natural habitat, we imagine this will be a welcome option. What an amazing way to teach future generations about the importance of our environment in a safe, dedicated space for them. We would then love to see other lands within Westport appropriated to the community gardens that would not only grant them a permanent home, but also give them more space that would allow more of the community to participate and enjoy such a worthwhile endeavor.