Board Not Eager to Buy
East Hampton School District officials, following weeks of community criticism over a proposed school bus depot in a residential district off Cedar Street, are now exploring a different location, the town-owned former scavenger waste facility, and is considering using a town and village-owned refueling facility on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton.
Two school board members and two administrators met with town officials shortly before Thanksgiving to discuss the three-acre site, which has been rehabilitated and cleared for redevelopment. At a Dec. 6 school board meeting, the board directed Superintendent Richard Burns to ask the town for a price.
Supervisor Larry Cantwell confirmed yesterday that the town and the school district are in talks about the property, but declined to discuss its value.
“I have, with the town board’s knowledge, spoken to representatives of the school regarding the potential availability of that property and our interest in selling to them if they would like to pursue the purchase of it,” Mr. Cantwell said. “I’m not going to get into the details of negotiations.”
While the school district’s initial plans for the bus maintenance depot on the Cedar Street side of the high school campus included a fuel pump, Mr. Burns said that “there could be communication and collaboration” for the district to use instead the fueling depot at the town Highway Department, nearby on the same road and co-owned by the town and East Hampton Village.
Indeed, Mr. Cantwell said, that idea is on the table. He said the fueling facility was capable of handling the additional capacity of school buses. “I think it would benefit all parties: the village, the town, and the school district,” the supervisor said. “To the extent that we can share services and assets to benefit the taxpayers collectively, we all need to do more of this.”
The town and the village would negotiate a cost-sharing agreement if the school were to come on board, he added. “It’s not a free ride.”
Christina DeSanti, vice president of the school board, said during the Dec. 6 meeting that she would be comfortable with the arrangement. “It will be a little more inconvenient, but it’s manageable, and we’d be splitting the maintenance,” she said. “It would take care of all the environmental concerns, and it would lower the cost of our project. . . . To me, it makes sense to take the fueling facility out of the Cedar Street project and use the town and village’s.”
While the school board seemed amenable to working out an agreement on the fuel depot, some members appeared reluctant to pursue the scavenger waste site, especially without knowing its price tag.
J.P. Foster, the board’s president, said he disliked buying more property because the whole idea was to save the taxpayers money: “I don’t want to add any more cost when we have a piece of property we can use. Maybe we compromise by not having the fuel there. . . .”
John Ryan Sr. had no problem with buses using the municipal fueling facility, but was opposed to buying the scavenger waste site. “It’s extra money. I believe the [bus depot] can fit on our property. We don’t have to pay rent or buy a piece of land.”
Jackie Lowey agreed. “Once you start talking about purchasing land to do construction on, you sort of erase any of the financial advantages of saving money,” she said. “If it’s not saving money, I don’t want to go ahead with a construction project.”
Purchasing the scavenger waste site rather than building on Cedar Street had strong support from district residents who attended the Dec. 6 meeting.
“If we spread out the cost of this, the taxpayers would be willing to pay the incremental increase. . . . I for one would approve of your spending $1 million, $2 million, or $3 million,” Lorne Singh said. “Down the road, it’s going to be worth it. I do think you need your own bus depot, but not on [Cedar Street].”
Charles John Collins said the scavenger waste site “makes so much sense,” as opposed to siting a bus depot on a mostly residential street. “It’s obvious a commercial entity should not be in that part of town. Meanwhile, there’s this property the town owns in a very industrial part of town,” Mr. Collins said. “We should explore that option a lot further.”
Paul Fiondella said the district should avoid building a bus barn on Cedar Street by contracting with the town to maintain and repair its buses at the highway department, in addition to using the town and village-owned fueling facility. “I would urge you to negotiate with the town,” he said.