Looking at legal avenues to ease Voke funding

The City Council is asking City Manager Thomas Ambrosino to look into any legal action that can be taken in the wake of last month’s vote to fund the building of a new $317 million Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School in Wakefield.

While the vote to fund the new school passed easily districtwide among the 12 member communities, Chelsea voters came out against the project. Councilors, School Committee members, and city and school officials stated the cost to Chelsea of nearly $2 million per year to help fund the new school was inequitable and too high a price for the community.

Councillors Judith Garcia, Tanairi Garcia, Melinda Vega Maldonado, and Norieliz De Jesus introduced the request to have Ambrosino look at legal measures to reduce the cost of construction, make the debt service more equitable among the member communities, and to improve the admissions process.

“We knew before that special election took place in January that we were not in favor of this expensive Northeast project,” said Judith Garcia. “It costs a lot for our city and it’s going to cause a predicament for our community for the next 30 years.”

If Ambrosino does find any legal avenues the city can take to address issues with the school, she said she hopes the council stands united to cosponsor and support any available actions.

“We don’t know what’s feasible and what is not, but the hope is that the City Manager can come to us with a legal understanding of what we are able to do here,” said Judith Garcia.

Maldonado said she’s received several calls from constituents stating it can be difficult to get their children admitted to the vocational high school if they do not have high grades.

“Being that this is a vocational school, we need to do better to ensure that students who can benefit from the technical programs they provide have the ability to go there,” said Vega Maldonado. “It’s extremely important that we are equitable in our admissions process, especially if we are going to pay for this school. We need to ensure that our youth who will benefit the most from going to the school will have the ability to get in.”

Councillor-At-Large Damali Vidot said she attended Northeast Vocational and that the admissions process was onerous then.

“We need to ensure an equitable admissions process,” she said. “We have so many people who come here from other countries who don’t really speak the language and can really benefit from the training where they would be working with their hands. It would be nice if all of our students had access to that.”

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