Concerned about impact of Burnham's closing

Published 4:10 pm, Wednesday, April 9, 2014

To the Editor:

I am a resident of Bridgewater who is gravely concerned about the impact to real estate values if Burnham School is closed.

I currently work in the field of assessment and have also been a licensed real estate broker and Realtor in this area. When I was a Realtor helping clients find a home back in 2004, they liked the small elementary school here in town but were not interested in moving into an area where their older child would have to travel to Washington for middle school.

They chose a smaller home in Brookfield instead.

This was prior to recent talk of consolidation. Now, the issue of consolidation is in the papers all the time and we are talking about shipping 5-year-olds two towns away. Real estate sales have already been impacted just by the possibility of closing our excellent primary school.

The Board of Ed hired consulting firm Kerin & Fazio to try and quell our fears about our homes losing value. It didn't work.

Mr. Kerin could not find a state town that did not have an elementary school. He had to look to sparsely populated northern New England to find any town without a school.

This was a completely different scenario involving areas that have never had a primary school.

It is a different system where it is a fact across a broad region that, if there were no school in town, the parent chooses what school their children will attend.

We won't even have that. We would have no primary or secondary school in our town and would be the first in the state with that dubious distinction.

I suggested to Mr. Kerin that he look at any towns that had closed and consolidated elementary schools and look at the home values in the neighborhoods of the closed school.

I do not know if he looked but, if he did, we not hear about it since the finding would support the decline of home values and would be contrary to what the Board of Education wants.

Putting the adverse educational impact arguments aside, the fiscal impact would be detrimental to Bridgewater and Roxbury. Combine a $35 million (plus interest) bond that would increase our taxes and decline home values.

This does not take into consideration the additional weight of operational costs each year or the problem of a vacant building in the center of town that would cost money to repurpose and potentially operate.

Consider this: If a town's mil rate goes up even 2 mils, not only would real estate taxes go up, but motor vehicle and personal property taxes would see a disproportionate increase and this would adversely affect not only the home owners but businesses as well.

I grew up on Long Island and remember when they closed an elementary school (grades K-6) and then a junior high school (grades 7-9) in our district. People moved out and the home values in those areas surrounding the school declined.

Unless you do not care about paying your bills, vote "no" to consolidation.

Kathryn

Krigsman-Devine

Bridgewater