If I Had My Way, I Would Tear This Old Building Down
POTTSTOWN, PA – Today’s online and print editions of The Mercury contain a letter from former 12-year Pottstown School Board member Barry Haring echoing our sentiments on the future of Rupert Elementary School.
Tear down Rupert School
Regarding the infamous Rupert School, I certainly don’t want this letter to turn into a tennis match, but I could not keep myself from responding to George Wausnock’s opinion.
Any taxpayer money that is spent on Rupert School you may as well flush down the toilet. This building does not have any steel in it and cannot be expanded. It looks like it is out of the dark ages and cannot be made energy efficient. The bricks were made with ash and they keep expanding and falling out of the upper levels around the parapet, and who knows what is behind the walls.
When I served on the Pottstown School Board, I suggested we implode the building and still to this day stand by my word (it should have been done). At this stage of the game, the school board should expand Edgewood and close Rupert and sell it to the historical society for one dollar. Sorry folks, this is my opinion and it may be far out but that old building has had it.
BARRY I. HARING
Pottstown
Former School Board Director
You can also read the letter on the Mercury’s site here.
This is not a letter written by a one term board member. Haring, a veteran board member, served during the middle school renovation period, so he knows what he’s talking about.
Thanks for going on the record Barry.
. . . to repeat The Mercury phrase:
“”ROSES to MR. BARRY HARING ! ! !
Thank you for your openness and honesty.
I would also wish that other past SB members and past PSD maintenance people, would come forward and tell the truth about the Rupert Structure.
This just adds more credence to the notion that replacing Ruperts windows is a colossal waste of money. There is a forecasted deficit in next years budget of a million dollars. Factor in a new teachers contract and it is not pretty. This SB has already had conversations about CLOSING 1 school, laying off teachers and support workers, and increasing class sizes. So if I had to pick a school to close, I would go with the one that is the oldest one that needs the most work down the line-Rupert. But we wouldn’t dare close Rupert after sinking $400,000 in it for windows. Who would be that stupid? Then again, who would be that stupid to spend $400,000 to put historically accurate windows in Rupert in the first place? Geez, I can think of 1 ego-maniacal self made legend and rescuer of all us dirty little people and his 4 henchmen.
Thank you. My wish is beginning to materialize.
Additional ROSES to ‘Pottstownsfuture’ & ‘Rob Morgan’.
I copied the following from The Mercury COMMENTS.
[[ Comments
The following are comments from the readers. In no way do they represent the views of pottsmerc.com or The Mercury.
Pottstownsfuture wrote on Feb 22, 2010 11:17 AM:
" Mr. Haring certainly has the right idea, Rupert School should either be torn down or sold. The children in the Pottstown School Distrct have a right to be educated in a modernized or preferably a(one,no more than two)new state of the art educational facility(ies). They are currently being educated in old buildings that have long lost their purpose as facilities of education. If you look at the surrounding communities and compare their educational facilities to ours, it's a no brainer! The taxpayes cannot keep up with the high school taxes in an impoverished area from these old buildings. Edgewood, I believe is the newest one, so keep that one open, expand/modernize and then build another one at the other end of town. It would save the taxpayers mega bucks in the long run and provide a modern facility(ies) of learning to the children that they so deserve. Perhaps someone would be interested in purchasing the old school buildings and turning them into senior living areas like the Jefferson School. That would certainly increase the tax base for the borough which is desperately needed. By the way, I haven't read any articles actually related to education from the new school board which I find not only amazing but unacceptable. "
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Rob Morgan wrote on Feb 22, 2010 12:46 PM:
" I am another ex-school board member, and I can attest to the facts in Mr. Haring's opinion. More importantly, so can the maintenance staff at the School District. Rupert school as NOT an historic building worth preserving. It is an albatross. It is not only a hindrance to the financial well being of the School District, and the tax payers of Pottstown, but its small, old fashioned, and uncomfortable classrooms are an impediment to the education of the children who must learn there. They deserve a modern school that is built with today's standards and educational goals in mind. The only thing Rupert is good for is to stroke the egos of people like Tom Hylton and George Wausnock, who love old buildings no matter what shape they are in and no matter what financial and educational hardships they cause. Pottstown's declining tax base makes it hard enough to offer the quality education our District strives to attain. Those precious tax dollars should not be further stretched just to satisfy the egos of a few individuals. " ]]
OK ! Will the rest of you – who “truly” know about the Rupert Structural Condition – please come forward and educate the rest of us?
This also was posted in Sound Off:
TrampledUnderfoot wrote on Feb 22, 2010 8:12 PM:
” While I respect all of your opinions. Here is my issue with Mr Haring & Mr. Morgan. Mr. Haring is stating that this school cannot be repaired & has been like this since he was on the SB. 1 question for him.1. Why did you let this school fall into such disrepair?Mr. Morgan I have 1 question for you.1. Why didn’t your SB get the mega campus done? You may correct me if I’m wrong but I believe you were on the school board at the time when the mega campus was being talked about.If the SB would have done the mega campus all of this would have been mute.There is 1 thing that we all can agree on. Something needs to be done with the elementary schools.pottstownsfuture & monkeybusiness, the reason you haven’t heard much about education is because these schools are in dire need of refurbishing. The past SB’s have let these schools continue to deteriorate year after year.Is the time right to do the repairs? Is the time right to merge of these schools?I’m tired of waiting for something to be done. It’s time for somebody to take the bold first step.Whether you like it or dislike like that’s what Hylton & this SB is doing.So in the end, Mr Haring & Mr. Morgan, it’s your failure to take those steps that has brought us to this. Blame who you want but don’t forget the Michael Jackson song Man in the Mirror. ”
This person is, of course, well-meaning but off the mark on a few points. I do not believe Mr. Morgan still was on the board during the greatest push for the Centers campus, although he was one of its big supporters. But the reason that board couldn’t get the Centers or “mega campus” project done was that Mr Hylton and his “Citizens for Responsible Government”, and the local newspaper, used bad information to scare enough voters into voting out the board members in the primary election, before it could move ahead with any kind of support. (And not enough pro-project people voted!!!)
The information Hylton and his group provided through flyers etc. gave a pricetag that was not accurate because they never noted the fact that the closed schools would be sold and the properties developed to help Pottstown’s tax base and to pay for the new construction. (Think about turning Rupert into a 55 and over community and what that could do……)
Hylton and his “Citizens” group pamphlets never acknowledged that the State had pledged millions of dollars to Pottstown as part of the project — and that money was a grant, not a loan.
Hylton instead focused on scare tactics and how the Centers would be located in “the worst part of Pottstown” and how unsafe it would be — ignoring the fact that the crime would have been addressed as part of the rehabilitation of that neighborhood, before anything was built. The people who would have been moved out of their houses would have under eminent domain laws been relocated to homes that were as nice or nicer and houses worth saving or fixing up would have been preserved. None of that made it to the information Mr. Hylton distributed. (It was in the district newsletters.) And none of Hylton’s pamphlets talked about the educational benefits a central campus would have brought to Pottstown and its kids (information that the district did try to share).
SavePottstown: Please help out here and reinsert the links to the district’s newsletters about all this. I know I read them here before but I can’t find them.
So: Don’t blame Mr. Haring and Mr. Morgan! We can blame the people who didn’t vote or show up at meetings to speak out in favor of the project (I attended one and was appalled by the fact that those who did speak out largely were all about “I don’t want my kids walking to school in THAT neighborhood” etc. …again, not listening to the board and district people who said “we, with the state money and police, will clean up the crime issues etc. first, and a school will improve the whole neighborhood. )
We can also blame the paper for doing so little to tell the educational benefits side of the story and for not investigating/reporting more on what the money from the state would have done for the town, and keeping that aspect in front of the readers/voters as something to consider. The Mercury’s tone was one-sided and short-sighted, to put it as nicely as possible.
Both Volumes (1 & 2) of Books, Bricks & Mortar can be found in our previous post “Why Is Rupert Worth Saving?”
http://savepottstown.com/2010/01/why-is-rupert-worth-saving
silent2long…a good recounting of the ‘tactics’ used to throw the Centralized Campus ‘under the bus’!!
That said, I’d still like to mention that these ‘tactics’ are still being used…8 Million v. 39 Million (largely untrue). The local effort required to renovate Lincoln & Franklin was more like 24 Million because of PDE reimbursement and Edgewood (as the ELC) was a virtual ZERO cost project. This plan provided for new spaces that served both students and staff, followed the safe & secure schools reccomendations, allowed for safe parent pick-up and drop-off areas, pleasing outdoor student spaces and upgrades in systems that would save us money in energy costs (and reduced busing costs, if I am not mistaken). It seemed like a ‘best of both worlds’ plan, to me. Not only that, but while it cost more money than the proposed 8 Million what we got seemed to be 3 times more (good ‘bang for the buck’) valuable AND contributed to the process of education; Mr. Hytlon’s ‘rush-job’ costs only 8 Million (plus or minus…no one really knows, just yet) and serves no integrated purpose toward the future of education in PSD.
I do realize the reason we have heard little to no talk of education is the buildings do need to be addressed BUT I cannot seem to wrap my head around a plan that factors education second AND disrespects the intelligence of the community by making the details of the plan always forthcoming in the forseeable future. While I would love to toss Hylton’s plan to the side based on the fact that it does not make educational sense; I can’t since I am not privy to the intent of the ‘global plan’. Similarly, I question ANY details now since they were not presented at the beginning of all this talk and the details that come ‘to light’ now might just be ideas in response to the complaints of the community – thereby, not standing on their own merit AND coming out of conveneient timing…’tactics’ rather than well-thought plans!! This offends me and my intelligence and makes me warry of ANYTHING to follow, thinking it is just a ‘spin tactic’ to garner support or popularity; the real work is debate and compromise working for the good of the community and district in a financially responsible manner.
All I can say is that I would love to know how this plan can get us the same things, CLEARLY spelled out in the 3 school plan, for less money – by my calculations he has about 16 Million left to ‘spend’ on paper to convince me that his ‘plan’ makes ANY sense to the community and its needs at this moment in time. This 3 school plan was a viable option, previously, as was the Centralized Campus BUT thanks to him and the ‘tactics’ that have been employed to impede past progress I feel like this ‘plan’ serves only a handfull of people as it is NOT carefully thought out for the good of the WHOLE community.
This whole issue sickens me…I just reread the “Bricks and Mortar” newsletters again…the taxpayers of this town were buried by more snow from Hylton and his cronies than we have seen this winter fall from the sky. The central campus was the absolute best way to move forward. I cannot believe that the “Army of Darkness” led by General Hylton has effectively destroyed any chance we had of modern day solutions with long term positive outcomes. We now have an epic struggle between the forces of going back in time to the good old 50′s and the brave few who have not been snowed under. I remember Barry Robertson’s letter to the mercury after the Central Campus SB members were defeated. Barry knew what was going to happen to this town and did what he said he would-sell his business and home and get out of Pottstown. Try selling your house now-according to the latest email I received from Zillow.com, there are 370 houses for sale within Pottstown’s boundaries. Good luck selling!
This is all starting to sound like “Lord of the Flies”…trapped on an island, playing nicely for a while, power struggles and then tragedy…the boy with the glasses, as I recall, doesn’t makeout too well with the ‘new regime’…
Imagine how good it could’ve been, seems as though Mr. Robertson was wise to get out when he did!!
This town would have been soooo much better with the Central Campus, it is sad, so sad.
The previous school board tried to create education centers (3 elementary schools) with a full plan for both education and savings to the taxpayers (no children would suffer). The Red Shirts shut them down. That is two School Boards that tried to create positive change in Pottstown while working very hard to ensure that the children flourished.
It looks like this School Board will succeed by having no educational plan and where the children will suffer…
Where is the logic? Where is the OUTRAGE!
As a member of previous school boards I second Mr Haring appraisal of the Rupert school building. I never heard a single professional asked to give an opinion on the Rupert building say anything but it was unsuitable for modern education methods and very expensive to modify for that purpose. Instead we are listening to an insurance salesman and a newspaper jounalist as authorities on education and construction issues.
Pottstown needs to grow up and realize that they are being poisoned on a daily basis by the local fishwrap “The Mercury”. Stop wasting your money and do the most positive thing you can do in Pottstown, eliminating the rag from your life will improve your outlook and lower your blood pressure. Without the help of the Mercury, Tom Hylton
would merely be a local oddball and his silly initiatives would never see the light of day. Back in parking and a Europark, you have got to be kidding.
i was perusing the merc. tonight and happened to find more from the peanut gallery:
Patty Fetterman wrote on Feb 26, 2010 5:39 PM:
” Rupert is one of the most beautiful structures in Pottstown. With a little vision and hard work, it could easily (and relative to building something brand new) be turned into a energy efficient 21st century building. Take a look outside of Pottstown to see evidence of restoring old, historic building into new, green structures. Bill Clinton spoke about this during his visit to Pottstown during the prez campaign, and Obama has set aside lots of federal dollars for this type of investment. I totally support all efforts to restore Rupert – to do the opposite shows extrordinary lack of vision. “