Who's Afraid of the SBC?

The opponents of the high school building project remain indignant. Between Jim Moran’s longmeadowbuzz site and the Masslive forum, the out of context facts and narrow choices and interpretations of statistics continue unabated. Surprisingly, these folks may have made some headway with Longmeadow News columnist Alex Grant, whose last two columns are dedicated to attacking the legitimacy of the Longmeadow School Building Committee.

Mr. Grant’s columns are consistently timely, thoughtful, and very well written, and it's important to note here that he is a supporter of the new high school. Notwithstanding the implications of the columns being criticized here, it would be wrong to lump Mr. Grant in with the crowd that continues to work to disrupt and discredit the school building project. However, it would be fair to say that Mr. Grant's criticisms of the SBC are both inaccurate and are providing aid and comfort to the very small but very loud anti-schools faction in town.

The crux of Mr. Grant’s initial piece was that his inability to trace the legal origins of the SBCs authority to manage the school building project suggests –to him-that the committee is exceeding its legal mandate, and is operating as an unaccountable policy making body. He reports that despite a “Freedom of Information request” as well as his review of “available public documents,” he could not find a legal paper trail leading back to the creation of the SBC, though he did acknowledge finding documentation of the appointment of its members by the Select Board and the School Committee acting jointly- a fact that seriously weakens the force of his conclusion that the SBC is not accountable to anyone.

His latest column, a response to the SBC's response to his initial column, seems to double-down on a very weak argument, having had the most salient part of his argument debunked by the SBCs clearly written and precise response. Despite his acknowledgement that the Select Board and School Committee appointed the members, Grant amazingly still claims that there is no proper "appointing authority" and that without a written record of the "creation" of the SBC that includes clear and precise language regarding jurisdiction and oversight, the committee's actions are illegal, illegitimate, or both. In fact, they are neither.

Mr. Grant's complaint amounts to a criticism of present law and standard operating procedures for the administration of local projects of this type and scope. He want's to tether every administrative decision involving large resource commitments to the political process. In other words, he wants more direct democracy on issues such as this because he thinks it "strange that a democratic form of government had produced an unelected entity with the authority to spend more money than the town entire annual budget." If "strange" means unusual, then he's simply wrong. If by "strange" Grant meant that it ought not be done because of the potential for the abuse of administrative discretion, then he's raising an interesting point worth discussing. Unfortunately, Grant has couched his criticisms as charges against the SBC. He thinks they ARE abusing their discretion, not merely that our present legal arrangement grants them too much discretion. On this point, of course, he is clearly wrong.

Mr. Grant should acknowledge this error and reframe his criticism as an argument against the design of the system in place, rather than what amounts to a personal-and baseless- attack on the integrity of the members of the SBC. Carrying water for the always colorful but rarely rational opponents of the new high school is a disservice to the community. Mr. Grant should explicitly disassociate himself and his criticisms of the SBC from this small but vocal faction in town politics.