I am truly sad to report that my misgivings about full regionalization of the Acton and Boxborough schools appear to be coming true.
I was a lukewarm opponent of regionalization. I certainly liked the idea of the town and schools saving money, but I had some strong concerns about what we might be sacrificing to fully regionalize. But my overriding concern was a lack of balanced information at the Special Town Meeting called to vote on full regionalization, so I went to the meeting last June and, with the help of my friend Charlie Kadlec, made my eight-minute presentation of the "con" side to give some balance. Eight minutes was half the time I requested and I was given no chance to answer questions or respond to comments.
Initially, I was pleasantly surprised that Acton's Finance Committee had voted (5-4) not to support regionalization. My good feeling about this quickly dissipated after hearing the weak and short presentation made by one of the FinCom members (who had voted in the minority, for regionalization, no less). So it was good that I didn't leave it up to the FinCom to present the case against regionalization, otherwise it probably would have passed on a voice vote.
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"Saving money" can mean different things to different people, as we are now learning....
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