On the surface, it was a pretty straightforward affair: At its meeting Monday evening, the City Council approved a request from Mayor Domenic Sarno to lease the old Our Lady of Mount Carmel school on Margaret Street from the Springfield Catholic Diocese.
Mount Carmel was one of several parochial schools closed by the diocese last year. The city—which will use the building to house students from the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Middle Academy next year, while their permanent school undergoes renovations—will pay $320,000 a year under the three-year lease, which will include an option to buy the building for about $2.7 million.
The vote looked like an easy win for the Sarno administration, which in recent months has been entangled in a number of budget-related battles with the City Council. According to Councilor Tim Rooke, however, the Mount Carmel vote only narrowly avoided erupting into yet another conflict between councilors and the mayor.
Rooke told the Advocate that when the item came to the councilors last week, it was woefully short on details, including the square footage of the building and the purchase price should the city want to buy it, as it did with two of the other closed parochial schools.
“I kind of blew up,” said Rooke, who has long complained that the administration does not provide the Council with adequate information to make good decisions on financial matters. “This is another example of what we’re talking about—we need to have the financial information way in advance,” he said.
“They seem to think it’s advantageous to wait until the last possible moment to bring it to the Council, and then think we will be like seals and follow whoever’s at the podium,” Rooke added. “But those days are over. I hope they’re over.”
In the end, Rooke did get the information he sought before the vote, after several phone conversations over the weekend with Assistant Superintendent Danny Warwick and Pat Sullivan, head of Facilities Management. He was among the nine councilors who voted in favor of the lease.
The next day, Rooke sent a memo to Superintendent Alan Ingram praising Warwick’s responsiveness. “Had it not been for Deputy Superintendent Warwick’s detailed explanation and ability to answer rapidly fired financial and background questions on this issue as well as Director Pat Sullivan, and [Finance Director] TJ Plante, I would have no doubt voted for and succeeded in having this item either sent to committee or denied due to the lack of details accompanying this item on the agenda. I have spoken with [Chief Administrative and Financial Officer] Lee Erdman so that in the future each financial item has the appropriate data attached in greater detail and well in advance of the meeting.
“In the future I would strongly recommend a business like approach on issues that need City Council approval. Meet with us and inform us of the who, what, when, where and why’s well ahead of time. Your earliest and professional approach to the City Council will greatly reduce the possibility of items being denied.
“Thank you for your time and if I was you I would thank Deputy Superintendent Dan Warwick, Director Pat Sullivan and TJ Plante for making themselves available during the weekend and for saving this issue from turning into an embarrassment to the Mayor and yourself.”
In response, Ingram wrote to Rooke, “Thank you for the feedback and I appreciate the Council’s support of the Mt. Carmel school lease. Our students and your constituents will be the direct beneficiary of this decision.
“Please be assured, I’m committed to being responsive, transparent and accountable as a school system. It helps when we know the questions and issues before hand, which makes it much easier to meet expectations…
“I have a solid senior leadership team in place and we are all committed to working collaboratively to address the needs of SPS students and our great city.”
The superintendent signed the letter “With hope.”
Rooke’s note, of course, was hardly a warm-and-fuzzy rapprochement; rather, it read like a thank you to the administration for not screwing up as significantly as it has in the past.
Indeed, Rooke couldn’t resist adding a dig at the administration over one of his pet peeves: its failure to seek competitive bids for a new School Department headquarters, which has moved to the old federal building on Main Street.
“I must admit after reading the lease for Mt Carmel over the weekend and doing the math a $10 per square foot lease and a construction cost of about $84.00 p.s.f is a pretty good buy/lease,” Rooke ended his letter to Ingram. “I wish you, the Law Department and the Mayor had followed the same logical path on the Federal Building Lease.”
