The Pelham Board of Education is scheduled to vote Wednesday night on sending four bond propositions totaling $143.6 million to district voters for approval, after deciding March 19 to increase the number of ballot initiatives from three so the proposal for an addition at Siwanoy Elementary School would have its own line on the ballot on May 20.
Because of that change, the board moved the infrastructure updates for Siwanoy out of Proposition 1, which now covers repair and renovations at the remaining schools except Hutchinson Elementary, and into a new Proposition 2 that would also fund the expansion at Siwanoy.
At the March 19 school board meeting in Pelham Memorial High School’s Alumni Hall, Board President Jackie De Angelis said, “Given the feedback we’ve heard between the last board meeting and now, I’m going to throw two more considerations at us for tonight. Should we split the infrastructure into Proposition 1 and have Siwanoy infrastructure and its project that is associated with it go together into a second proposition? So, we have two propositions.”
Trustee Darra Gordon moved the motion to increase the bond referendum to four propositions, and that was seconded by Trustee Kathryn Cohen. It passed unanimously.
Under Proposition 3, PMHS would get a three-story addition with eight new science labs and a commons/cafeteria space, while Proposition 4 would fund installation of geothermal wells at Siwanoy and Prospect Hill.
The Siwanoy addition is the only one of the capital projects that has drawn any public opposition, with some residents who live near the school calling for a smaller expansion.
According to the bond resolution the board is scheduled take up on Wednesday night, Propositions 2, 3 and 4 will be contingent on Proposition 1 passing. That means, for example, if the PMHS addition (Prop 3) receives enough votes for approval, it will still fail if Pelham voters don’t give the go ahead for the repair-funding Proposition 1, which would also provide central air conditioning to Colonial and Prospect Hill elementary schools. The same is true for Prop 2 (Siwanoy, including AC) and Prop 4 (geothermal).
The trustees first decided to break the capital projects up into propositions—three at the time—at its March 12 meeting, saying in a bond update email that the move “is intended to provide voters choices on how to proceed.”
The board’s bond resolution listed the four propositions and their costs as:
- Proposition 1: $56.2 million for infrastructure projects at Colonial, Prospect Hill, Pelham Middle School and PMHS, including central AC at Colonial and Prospect Hill. Other work would include window replacements, roof repairs, masonry restoration and replacing end-of-life steam boilers in Colonial, Prospect Hill and PMHS.
- Proposition 2: $42.6 million to install elevators, ramps and other improvements to make Siwanoy compliant with the Americans with Disability Act (ADA), renovate space under the gym into a new cafeteria and build a two-story, eight-classroom expansion, with a net gain of three classrooms because existing rooms will be lost after construction of the elevators and cafeteria. The building will also see infrastructure upgrades similar to those listed in Proposition 1 for the other schools, including replacing boilers and installing central AC.
- Proposition 3: $40.4 million for the addition to PMHS, which would run along Ingalls Field between PMHS and PMS. Existing science labs on the third floor of the PMHS annex would also be updated as part of the project.
- Proposition 4: $4.5 million for the geothermal wells.
The district has said the tax increases that will result from borrowing for the four projects will be disclosed during Wednesday’s meeting.
Public Comment
During public comment, Siwanoy PTA President Madeline Mercer spoke in favor of the Siwanoy addition, saying, “I very much want this for my kids. I don’t even know if my kids are going to have a chance to see it. One of the things that I’m really worried about is it becoming a situation where it is falling down, and where it’s in much greater disrepair by the time that we need to take a three-year construction project to benefit the kids that are in dire need.”
“Another thing that I’m really worried about is I trust the people who are the experts in educating my kids,” she said. “That’s why I send them to public school. I believe in public schools, and I trust the teachers. I also go to PTA meetings with those teachers. When we talked about this bond and the facilities, I heard stories about ordering furniture that doesn’t fit into the classrooms, and they had to send it back. The way that they juggle lunch duty and dismissal in spaces that are too small for the amount of bodies—tiny as they are—that are in that school.”
Adam Ilkowitz of 498 Manor Lane spoke against the Siwanoy addition. To get ADA compliance, he said, “we are asked to fund a building the community doesn’t seem to want and lose outdoor space we desperately need and it’s a third of the usable space.” He said the project faces the prospect that it will violate the Village of Pelham Manor’s zoning ordinance, and he criticized the plan for building new classrooms at the same time the preliminary budget for 2025-26 cuts teaching positions.
“We can make Siwanoy ADA accessible only if we can also build new classrooms and a cafeteria,” he said. “We need to build extra classrooms, but we may not be able to afford to staff them in the future. We may not be able to afford teachers in the tax-cap budget, but we can request anything we want in an uncapped bond proposal. So we’ve ended up here—an operating budget that starts cutting teachers and a bond that builds bigger than is needed and bigger than the community wants.”
At its March 12 meeting, the board of education voted to approve a contract to acquire the property at 29 Franklin Place across the street from the middle school and high school. The acquisition will be subject to a separate referendum during the district election, when voters will be asked to spend up to $1.85 million, which includes the negotiated sale price of $1.45 million and $400,000 to renovate the house into office space for administrators now working in the Sanborn Map Building, the district said in an email update to residents.
The purchase and renovations will be paid for out of an existing fund balance and will not result in additional taxes. Nine of the 15 staff members in the rented offices at Sanborn could be accommodated in the house, the district said.
Editor’s note: Clay Bushong, owner of 29 Franklin Place, is a member of the board of directors of the Hudson Valley Local News Lab Inc., which owns and publishes the Pelham Examiner. He did not have any role in the production of this story.
