Town Meeting Votes on New AHS Building

• December 5, 2023

By Julia Rodenberger, Anushka Dole, and Vismay Ravikumar
STAFF WRITERS

ANDOVER – Nearly 1,900 Andover residents voted on the future of the AHS building at the special town meeting on November 20, electing to renovate the existing building rather than construct a new one.

Attendees gathered in the crowded AHS Field House for 3.5 hours to address the seven articles on the ballot. Article 7 was the article concerning the future of the AHS building. It contained two distinct proposals, entitled 7A and 7B. Article 7A proposed allocating $1.3 million from Andover’s free cash reserves to purchase services for the schematic design of the proposed new $451.5 million building. Article 7B would approve a $500,000 study that explores interim upgrades for the existing building until the town has the financial means to fund a new school.

After an hour of fiery debate, of the 1860 participating voters, only 395 voted “Yes” on Article 7A, with 1,404 voting “No” and 61 abstaining. Article 7B passed through a hand vote; the exact voter count is unknown due to a technical issue regarding the electronic voting system.

Town Moderator Sheila Doherty addressed voters before opening the discussion for Article 7.  “People are very, very charged on this on different sides,” she said.

An Andover resident at the “CON” mic questioned the necessity of the $451.5 million proposal, referencing the inclusion of $3 million artificial turf fields. “This design is excessive in ways the project team hasn’t sufficiently justified,” she stated. “The project team should be able to explain and justify the design, especially when that design can cost the average taxpayer an additional $2,000+ per year.” 

Mary Robb, an AHS history teacher, emphasized the need for responsible spending in the current high school building. “We do not need the Taj Mahal,” she said. “There have been numerous times that I’ve received equipment that I didn’t ask for, that I don’t use, and that actually takes up space in an already limited classroom… When somebody gives you a smart board, and they place it right over your whiteboard that you use every day, and then they say, oh, don’t write on that, they’ve taken up the majority of our teaching space.”

Nonetheless, Robbs expressed support for a new school building. “It’s really frustrating trying to do your job and give your students the best things you can when you don’t have the basics that you need to do that.”

Christopher Shepley, a senior at AHS running for school committee this coming election, spoke at the “CON” mic. “There are issues [with the building] for sure, but the outcome that we need starts at the top. It starts at leadership,” he stated. 

Attendees debated whether the new school building was intended to benefit students or raise property values in a town with some of the most expensive real estate in the Merrimack Valley. A speaker for the financial committee noted that “Andover has both the most expensive school proposal and zero state grants, which means that Andover taxpayers would pay for the entire cost of construction.” 

In response, Andover resident Andrea Desonier spoke of how her high school was renovated during her junior and senior years. Desonier claimed it was merely a “change of scenery” and that the plan for the new school building is “not just about the student’s education, but perhaps more about property values.” Desonier pointed out the importance of teachers and staff and called for investment into educational programs for art, math, reading, and other subjects; she was met with applause from the audience.

Andover resident Claire Piesza spoke out against article 7B. Piesza pointed out that multiple other avenues have been explored but have failed to address the physical and educational deficiencies of the current Andover High School building for under $100 million. Piesza claimed that “[Article 7B] will get us nothing more than temporary trailers in a parking lot,” and called for the town to stop delaying the construction of a new building.

This special town meeting arrived less than a week after Andover Education Association members went on strike, prompting schools to close for three days. Following days of tense negotiation, the AEA reached an agreement with the School Committee to raise teacher salaries by 15.5% over four years for cost-of-living adjustments and IAs’ salaries by 34% over that same period to provide them with a living wage, among other demands.

Article 3, which proposed that health care premiums should be divided equally for retired and active town employees, failed 1,508-359 in an electronic vote, with 69 abstaining. Holly Currier, an instructional assistant at Andover High, voiced her support for the unpopular article, stating that “despite many of our actively working IAs now approaching a living wage, our retired IAs are facing relative poverty.”

Other notable articles included Article 1, which asked whether voters favored or opposed keeping open town meetings. The article called into question the logistics and structure of open town meetings as Andover’s principal form of legislation in a town of 36,569 residents as of the 2020 census, seeking to explore alternatives such as representative town meetings. The vast majority of the 351 Massachusetts towns retain open town meetings. 

Many voters assumed that the article was a ballot question when, in actuality, the vote was to decide whether the question should be added to the ballot of the next town meeting and would serve only as an advisory vote. Town officials have stated that the Town Governance Study Committee settled the issue last year, which recommended that Andover retain open town meetings. Voters decided to keep it off the ballot in a 1,181-692 electronic vote with 32 abstentions. 

Article 2, which proposed a limit on the annual property tax increase for Andover residents over 65 at 2.5 percent, failed 1,433-479 in an electronic vote. Even if voters approved the article, it wouldn’t have affected change because it would be preempted by the state of Massachusetts; the adoption of a fixed tax limit is not legal.

Yellow signs dotted front lawns across Andover last year, advocating for a 25 MPH speed limit in thickly settled districts townwide. This measure passed, and Article 5 sought to extend this speed limit to several major roads, including Chandler Road, Dascomb Road, Harold Parker Road, Jenkins Road, Lovejoy Road, North Street, River Road, and portions of Main Street. Town residents voted overwhelmingly against this measure, with an electronic vote of 1,508-359, with 69 abstaining.