To our RTM (Representative Town Meeting) committees, please consider making the new auditorium a priority. Please take these bullet points very seriously and let's do what is right for our children.

GHS Music Instructional Space and Auditorium Project Bullet Points

  • The choral, band and orchestra rooms are half the size they should be.
  • The auditorium holds 31% of our students compared with 61% in comparable communities. State standard is 50%.
  • In Fairfield County, only Bridgeport facilities are ranked lower than GHS by the state.
  • The project will not start till Glenville is completed, but we need to do the architecture/engineering work and get going. The full A&E monies are necessary to answer the questions about zoning, FAR concerns and to obtain viable drawings and proper plans.
  • Delaying the project is the most expensive action we could take to effect the project.
  • The pipeline of performing students from the elementary schools is growing, more so than the slight drop-off in GHS population (100 fewer students over 10 years.)
  • 100-200 students are annually turned away from music/performance/choral offerings; limited space
  • The project is widely supported through petitions (over 4,000 signed) and other town processes - vetted by First Selectman, CIP committee, BET Budget Committee, BET, and by majority vote of committees of RTM.
  • The tax implications are understood and manageable per the BET, taxes will not rise.
  • The construction amount of $23.4M includes 15% contingency, 6% escalation (it is a 'high' estimate), and project management fees. This means the contract will be structured the same as the downtown public safety complex, not like Hamilton Avenue school.
  • The proposed auditorium is equivalent to other comparable schools, not extravagant, not 'Broadway.'

To my fellow Greenwich residents, please contact your district RTM members http://www.greenwichct.org/RTM/RTM.asp (go to 'search RTM member list', then click on 'click here', click on the map of Greenwich, then click on your district and your RTM members names, phone numbers and addresses will come up) and let them know how important Greenwich High School is to our community.

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