Summit on Wellington traffic, safety issues Wednesday

As planning for the construction of a new Wellington Elementary moves forward, the architects, Wellington Building Committee, town and community members have been working hard to balance the needs of the school community with those of the surrounding neighborhood, as well as meet guidelines for safety, state mandates and so on. Needless to say, this isn’t always easy (in the same way that, say, three dimensional chess isn’t easy).

One area of discussion and concern with preliminary plans for the new school is around the impact of the new building on parking and drop-off/pick up space. Some Wellington neighbors have voiced concerns about traffic on adjoining streets, and fire and public safety officials want to make sure that the new school will be easily accessible by emergency vehicles in the event of …well…an emergency. Needless to say, there are also State mandates and codes that the building must conform to. While the Wellington Building Committee is responsible for many of the design decisions affecting the construction of the new school, many of the traffic issues fall outside of the group’s realm of responsibility.

Now an important meeting has been called to help address the concerns of neighbors and get all the responsible parties in the room to discuss the issues at hand. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, September 16 at 7:30 PM in the Board of Selectmen’s room at Town Hall. The meeting was called by Pat Brusch, Vice Chair of the WBC and Chair of the Permanent Building Committee and will involve members from the Planning Board, the Traffic Advisory Committee, the Board of Selectmen, the School Committee, Wellington PTO, the WBC and the Fire Chief, Police Chief, and Building Inspector.

There has been a lot of inaccurate or incomplete information floating around about the Wellington project. Some of that is due to the slow trickle of information from the WBC that’s been released to the public. Some of it is due to concerns from those involved in planning the new school that  information that’s released before it is in its absolutely final form just leads to confusion, misplaced concerns and other distractions.

One thing’s clear: more and more open lines of communications between all of the many parties involved will help clear the air and alleviate tension. So if you’re a neighbor, Wellington Parent or simply a concerned citizen and want to have your voice heard on this important issue, make a note of the meeting date and time. We’ll see you there!