Newton voters OK $151m high school plan

NEWTON -- Casting aside warnings from critics who said it would hobble the city's finances for decades, voters in Newton last night decided to let the city move forward with the most expensive high school construction project in state history.

The site plan voters approved calls for an estimated $151 million replacement for Newton North High School, a 35-year-old building plagued by leaks, heating and cooling problems, and a lack of natural light.

Supporters said last night that, with the new school, students at Newton North will get facilities befitting a city that identifies itself with educational excellence. Newton North's SAT and MCAS scores annually rank it among the top high schools in the state, and the boy's basketball team has been state champions for two straight years.

"This is a real victory for the city of Newton," said Mayor David B. Cohen , who staked much of his political capital on the design created by a consortium led by architect Graham Gund of Cambridge. "We are reaffirming our commitment to making sure that all our children receive a top-notch education."

The yes vote (8,531 of the 14,569 ballots cast) won handily yesterday with more than 58 percent of the vote and 24 of the city's 31 precincts. Voter turnout was 31 percent citywide, with the heaviest turnout on the city's north side, where the school's population base resides.

The vote was a vindication for Cohen, whose resistance to modifying Gund's vision and stubborn insistence that the city could pay for the project without overrides helped fuel the petition drive that forced yesterday's referendum vote.

Cohen has recently struck a slightly more conciliatory tone, saying he would like to cap the project's cost at $141 million. But Cohen stuck to his assertion last night that the city can afford to build the school without raising taxes or resorting to a debt-exclusion override, a temporary tax increase that lasts until the bonds on a particular municipal project are paid off.

Critics called the result disappointing.

Jeffrey Seideman , president of the Newton Taxpayers Association, said that the vote simply sets up a future showdown in which voters will have to chose between a tax override or severe cuts in city services.

"I don't believe that anyone who is reasonable can believe that this can be done without additional money or massive layoffs," Seideman said.

In a recently released financing plan, Cohen said that the city would receive a $46.5 million grant and a $15 million low-interest loan from the state School Building Authority. That assistance, he said, would allow the city to pay for the school and still have $3.5 million to fix the city's dilapidated fire stations and elementary schools.

Critics, however, called that amount inadequate, and even some school supporters said they could not short-change the city's other schools no matter how badly a new Newton North was needed.

The urgent need for major improvements at the school was one of the few things opposing sides in the referendum agreed on.

A team of 18 evaluators from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges recently visited the school and found the facilities "deplorable and discouraging." The evaluators warned that Newton North risked losing its accreditation from the association if the building's problems weren't addressed quickly.

The proposed design on the ballot has a glass-walled cafeteria at the center of a 400,000-square-foot building and includes a 2,000-seat football stadium, two theaters, and large science labs.

Fred Goldstein, 53, a consultant from Newton Highlands, said he voted no yesterday because the designers seemed to have come up with a "gold-plated athletic complex with all sorts of athletic fields suitable for Olympic training, then squeezed in a . . . little high school in the corner."

Following a recommendation from the Newton School Committee, the architects copied the current building's "Main Street" -- a long, central corridor that serves as a link between the school's programs, academics, arts, and athletics.

Critics said the Gund design took the "Main Street" concept too far, creating a building 400 feet longer to walk from one end to the other than the current school. The angles in the design could also drive up construction costs, opponents say.

Supporters, however, said that those irregular angles serve an important function -- guaranteeing that every classroom has at least some natural light.

Ranalli can be reached at rranalli@globe.com.