Letter: Dale Site "Helps Knit Together The Core of Our Town"

To the editor:

Neither I nor my wife are New Englanders by birth. We came here 41 years ago as part of a career opportunity, stayed 10 years and moved twice to other states, but returned in 1999 and have been here ever since. Why? Because Medfield is a gem: that rare town that retains its distinct identity while being part of a metropolitan area of more than 6 million people.

Part of that identity is a handful of roads and homes from the past: narrow streets with two- and three-century-old homes that co-exist with the 21st Century. Elm Street is perhaps the best preserved of those by-ways, with its twists and turns and, especially, its narrow bridge over Mine Brook. Elm Street is one of my wife’s and my favorite walks in town.

If the new school is built at the Wheelock ‘campus’, here is what will happen: not this year or next, but soon after the new building is in place, a group of parents will fret that the bridge is unsafe for buses of any size, that the lack of sidewalks makes it a dangerous passage, and those blind corners will cost a child his or her life. Those parents will demand, in the name of safety, the road be widened, straightened, and the bridge be replaced. The town will accede to their wishes because no one wants a child to be injured or killed.

And, in the process, Elm Street’s charm will be lost to all the generations that follow.

‘Dale@Dale’ is a perfectly acceptable alternative. It helps knit together the core of our town and It is more physically accessible to its students. The school committee and select board made a mistake in not choosing it.

At Town Meeting, we voted to ask the School Building Committee to reconsider its position. Since that time, I’ve heard or seen nothing that tells me anyone on that committee has an open mind. Instead, their goal is to ‘educate’ us that Wheelock is the preferable site, and to leave the impression that failure to see it ‘their way’ means no new school will be built.

Neal Sanders

Pine Street