Dedham athletic fields tied to Avery decision

When Dedham voters head to the polls Jan. 19, they will decide the fates of two multimillion-dollar projects. But while they could choose to go ahead with both a new Avery School and a renovated high school athletic complex, or just the Avery, the sports project cannot stand on its own.

The School Building Rehabilitation Committee prioritized the new elementary school over the athletic complex earlier this year, stipulating that special Town Meeting could only appropriate funds for the latter if it did so first for the Avery.

“If Avery School fails, (and) the high school athletic field project passes, the high school athletic field project ballot approval is inoperative, it’s void, because the appropriation that was passed” at special Town Meeting “is contingent upon the Avery School,” Andy Lawlor, the chairman of the school rehab committee, told the Board of Selectmen last week.

“So the need is both,” said Selectman Carmen DelloIacono. “And that’s as plain as you can be, the need is both.”

Lawlor responded that if residents want the athletic field project, they need to vote for both it and the Avery School.

As expected, the selectmen decided to call a special election for Jan. 19, the same day as the statewide election for the Senate.

On that Tuesday, voters will be presented with two Proposition 2½ debt-exclusion property tax overrides. In the first ballot question, they will decide whether to provide the $12-million-plus in bond funding Dedham needs to go forward with a new $23.37 million Avery School by Pottery Lane. The average Dedham homeowner would need to pay $1,509 toward the school over 25 years, or about $60 per year. But the town’s exempt debt will remain constant over the next four to five years – as the Avery borrowing replaces old debt rolling off the books – meaning there will be no net increase in taxes from the Avery project in the short term, according to Lawlor.

In the second ballot question, voters will decide whether to OK the $3.1 million in bond funding Dedham would need to renovate the Stone Park athletic complex, including the design and construction of a synthetic turf field for multiple sports; a new 400-meter, six-lane track with an 8-lane straightaway; home bleachers for 1,000 spectators; a new press box, multiuse scoreboard, and restrooms; and wiring for lights.

That project would cost the average homeowner $21 per year, or $338 total over 16 years.

Lawlor explained that the Massachusetts School Building Authority – which has agreed to provide a grant of just over $11 million for the Avery School – rejected his committee’s request to bundle together the two projects, because of its grant rules.

That meant the committee needed to put forward separate proposals. While the rehab group considered both projects important, “Our judgment was that the construction of a new elementary school to house a quarter of the town’s elementary schoolchildren was a greater need than improving our substandard high school athletic facility,” Lawlor said. Thus, the Town Meeting articles were structured so that the athletic project proposal was only heard contingent on the passage of the Avery plan. Town Meeting approved both, but the final say rests with the voters.

Lawlor said the ballot itself will not have contingency language – but Town Meeting’s vote to appropriate funds for the athletic project will be “ineffective,” even if that ballot question passes, if the Avery question does not.

“It’s a structure that we haven’t seen before” for the three or four debt-exclusion votes Dedham has already held, noted Selectmen Chairman Michael Butler.

Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.