By Patrick Anderson
Gloucester's awkward dance with the planned North Shore regional vocational school will continue into the new year.
City Council was unable to override the veto from Mayor Carolyn Kirk that has kept Gloucester from becoming part of the new state-of-the-art school and committing to pay a share of the estimated $133 million construction cost.
The vote on Tuesday night was 5-3 in favor of overriding the veto, identical to the tally two weeks ago that briefly gave the city a place in the new school, one councilor short of the two-thirds majority needed to brush back the veto.
But while the vote keeps the city out of the new school for now, momentum in the emotional and at times divisive debate appears to be on the side of regionalization.
Two of the three councilors who held firm against immediately joining the school, Ward 4 Councilor Jackie Hardy and Ward 3 Councilor Steve Curcuru, said unanswered questions about the costs of the new school and how they would be paid were preventing them from voting in favor. If those questions are answered, both Hardy and Curcuru signaled a willingness to support joining the new school.
"I want to continue this discussion," Hardy said. "We need to know what the facts and figures are."
"This doesn't mean I am closing the door," said Curcuru, who called the council's "rush" to vote on the issue two weeks ago without firmer financial estimates "irresponsible."
The School Committee, which came late to the debate about the regional vocational school despite knowing of the merger plans for years, is convening a task force to examine expanding the vocational programs in Gloucester High School.
Kirk called for the council to delay any commitment to the regional school at least until the task force completes a study on the issue, which she said would include a "business plan" for expanding vocational education in Gloucester.
But according to the School Committee, the task force's study of bolstering local vocational programs will be separate from the decision to join the new school and not an alternative to regional membership.
"The steering group will study the viability of expanding existing programs, the potential of expanding, how many can be expanded and how will it work ¬— separate from the merger," said School Committee member Melissa Teixeira, the city's representative on the regional school board.
Separately, Teixeira said the School Committee is planning an information session for the City Council to provide all of the projections, estimates, facts and figures on the new regional school that councilors have been asking for.
Poised at the end of November to recommend the city join the new regional school (assuming the costs were not transferred to the school budget), the School Committee instead decided to recommend delaying a vote after receiving a bleak fiscal warning from Kirk.
At the moment, Gloucester has until the summer before the regional school opens in 2013 to join the new district, but officials planning the new school are working on amendment to state law that would move that deadline up to this July.
The new school, a merger of the North Shore Technical High School in Middleton and Essex Agricultural and Technical High School in Danvers, will create a 1,440 student building on land home to the Essex Aggie campus in Danvers.
The state is committing around $100 million toward the construction of the new school, leaving the 17 potential member communities to pick up the remaining costs.
Waiting until the last minute would deprive the city of having a say on how the agreement that governs the new school is written. The fact that communities have to commit to paying for the new school before those rules are written has been a source of frustration for some councilors.
For Ward 1 Councilor Jason Grow, giving the city a chance to influence the new school's governance is critical.
"One of the things that made me come around on this issue is that I want a seat at the table," Grow said Tuesday. "I would hate to see (a new regional agreement) drawn up that is a mirror of the last one."
Other council supporters of joining the regional school have cast the issue as a matter of gender rights.
At-large Councilor Joseph Ciolino has consistently said the vocational offerings at the regional schools, which go beyond the traditional shop programs, provide an additional benefit for female students not available locally.
Councilor Sharon George went even further, calling Gloucester High School's failure to provide vocational programs that appeal to female students an act of "discrimination."
"I feel that the young women of the city are being disenfranchised and discriminated against because there is nothing for them at the voke in Gloucester," George said.
Patrick Anderson can be reached at 978-283-7000, x3455, panderson@gloucestertimes.com
