By John H. Palmer

This was supposed to be the summer of John.

I figured a Seinfeld reference was appropriate this week, given that Westport seems to be going though a bizarro process of getting an elementary school built and funded.

Usually around this time of year, the editorial calendar starts to wind down a bit after school graduations end and everyone goes away on vacation, and the agendas of the town boards get a little less exciting.

So much for that. In the next two weeks, I count no less than 10 meetings that we’ll be covering as the town deals with a last minute push to get the Long Lots Elementary School project to a point where the town can apply for a grant that could pay for up to almost a quarter of the entire $98 million price tag. I gave the staff orders to recharge over the weekend, to get ready for the onslaught.

That doesn’t include the Hamlet application, which is another big town development in Saugatuck that the Planning and Zoning Commission is trying to wrap up no later than July. You may have heard about that.

I’ve written plenty about that in this column, so I’ll give it a break this week, and instead focus on the Long Lots situation, which has turned into a big game of “he said, she said.” I have no desire to let this news site become the moderator of that game, and so I’ll focus on what we know, how we are handling coverage of the story, and where to go from here.

This was supposed to be the summer of John.

A reported merger and a mad rush

First, what do we know? As we reported on Wednesday, it appears that a “realignment” of two state departments has resulted in the change for state reimbursement of municipal projects, in this case the Long Lots school, which as of now is scheduled to open in 2027.

Where the Long Lots Building Committee and town officials apparently thought they had until October to apply for the grant, it appears that the town was told on May 16 by the state that they now have until June 30. To make matters more complicated and rushed, a town charter regulation requires a two-week break period to allow for the opportunity to file for a public referendum in town expenditures over $500,000.

As a result, a mad rush has ensued to make sure that town commissions hold meetings, review, approve, and ultimately sign off on the project application before the RTM votes on the appropriation request by June 16.

How did we cover this?

Westport Journal reporter Gretchen Webster picked up on the surprise schedule change last Tuesday evening at a meeting of the Architectural Review Board, where the aesthetics of the plan were reviewed and approved. She noted in her filed story that Jay Keenan, chairman of the school building committee, told the ARB that town officials recently found out there was only 14 days to get approval to meet the funding deadline.

I pushed her on this, and after consulting with town Finance Director Gary Conrad and Assistant Town Attorney Eileen Lavigne Flug, she was told about the merger and the change in the deadline, and Conrad even sat down with her and outlined the details of the situation.

That very evening, at a joint meeting of the building committee and the education and finance committees of the Representative Town Meeting, reporter Kerri Williams listened as Keenan told members the opposite of what we reported, that the change in funding delays “has nothing to do with the state changing things.” He also apparently told the committees that he was not aware of the town charter’s requirement for a 14-day pause.

What we found out since then

Enter the merry-go-round of facts we’ve had to sift through this past week from our readership, bless you all. I’ve talked at length this week with many town officials and board members, former and current, many of whom have been involved with the school building process started in 2022.

I’ve been sent construction calendars that show that the original plan was to apply for the state grant by June 30, 2023, a deadline that was well known, but obviously things changed in the two years since then that led us to where we are.

Someone sent us a link to a July 2023 article in the Greenwich Time, which chronicles how that town missed the Connecticut reimbursement deadline for two school projects that year, risking reimbursement, further construction delays, and potentially putting taxpayers on the hook for many more millions of dollars, especially if the state chose not to put them on the priority list and the town had to move forward without state funding. (That did not happen. Greenwich got on the 2024 list, and both projects have since broken ground).

We reached out to the state department of administrative services, a representative of which told us that “in recent memory – at least since DAS began administering the school construction grant program in 2011 – the priority list deadline has always been June 30 at 8 p.m.” We were then directed to a website describing the “priority list grant process” which clearly shows a deadline of June 30.

Many questions to be answered, and taxpayers deserve some answers

First, I will say that I stand firmly behind our reporting on this issue. Despite what chairman Keenan told the RTM Wednesday evening contradicting our report, we decided to run with information from two town officials higher in rank than him. In reporter world, a land where stories rely both on information officials are willing to disclose, and what you’re able to dig up, this was about as “official” as you can get.

The Long Lots Building Committee has a reputation of not being forthcoming in their process, and many have accused them of holding meetings in the dark, possibly bordering on illegal. I’ll concede that I am sure the members are well-intentioned, and have a thankless, difficult, volunteer job that they do outside their day jobs. Still, they took this responsibility on, and I call on Keenan and the rest of the LLBC to be more transparent about the process moving forward.

Stories such as this tend to be fluid in nature, and therefore require constant updating. We’ve been trying to do that for you, and I hope we’ve done a reasonable job keeping taxpayers updated and to keep a healthy debate going.

But as reporters, we have a lot of questions that still are not answered, and we feel that town officials need to be much more transparent. You, as the taxpayers who will fund this school project, deserve no less.

Here are 5 questions that we hope officials will answer over the next two weeks when this process becomes much more public:

• Which state departments merged, causing this apparent change in the deadline for filing for grant funding? State officials couldn’t tell us anything, and town officials haven’t been able to show proof of the apparently original October deadline. Did someone lie about this, or were they perhaps fed erroneous information?
• I am no construction expert, but given my profession as a news editor, I know a thing or two about deadlines and planning. Who was the person, in charge of building a $98-million school, that failed to mark on a calendar what the correct funding deadline is, and therefore preventing a last-minute rush to approve the project?
• Where is First Selectwoman Jennifer Tooker, who was out of town this week and unavailable to comment on this situation? Her May 14 request for a new “8-24” land use report exiling the Westport Community Gardens from the school project, and the need to cram this through the Planning and Zoning Commission (while finding a new place for the gardens) will certainly be on the minds of many. She needs to take her mind off the November governor’s race for a minute, and talk to her worried constituents.
• Why was chairman Keenan, apparently heading a town board in charge of building the new school, not aware of a crucial town charter requirement that requires a 14-day pause in the process to allow for public referendum? That seems to me a very important detail that should have been included in the planning of a project of this magnitude.
• Why are town officials not on the same page on this? Is there no communication between them regarding such an expensive and town-changing school project?

So, Westport, take a deep breath, drink some coffee, and get ready for some long evenings over the next several weeks as we see how the town approval process plays out. As always, we’ll be there covering the issues that arise.

Can I then please sit around in my sweatpants and enjoy a Diet Coke that I pull out of the fridge on the side of my recliner?

John Palmer, a Norwalk native, is editor of the Westport Journal, and has covered community news in Fairfield County and Massachusetts for over 30 years. He can be contacted at jpalmer@westportjournal.com.