Larsen said she has myriad safety concerns that coincide with a school of that size with what they believe will be woefully inadequate parking.
Westfield - Homeowers on Cross Street in Westfield parked on the street on Saturday to show how narrow the street can be when a new elementary school being constructed at the former Ashley Street School is built. Here a sign on a lawn on Cross St expresses one's sentiment on the matter. WESTFIELD – A group of Cross Street residents took matters into their own hands, and their own cars, with an old-fashioned show of grassroots dissidence on Saturday.
About two dozen residents parked their cars on the narrow street off Route 20 to enact what they believe will be a traffic nightmare once the new proposed Westfield Elementary School is built at Cross and Ashley streets.
While traffic wasn’t exactly snarled, it was stop-and-go as cars were unable to travel simultaneously in both directions on the two-way street.
“If you think traffic sucks now, imagine 300-plus minivans and 10 school buses,” a hand-made sign read that was planted prominently on the lawn of Emily Larsen’s home at 36 ½ Cross St.
The so-called park-a-thon was the latest initiate of “Save Our Neighborhood,” comprised of a group of residents surrounding the site who oppose the scale of the proposed 600-pupil school.
“It’s massive. It’s like a hotel,” Larsen said, adding that many residents attended an informational session last year sponsored by the school committee but came away with the message that it was already a done deal.
The plans for the proposed model school are 90 percent complete, according to Kevin J. Sullivan, vice chairman of the Westfield School Committee and School Building Committee.
He said the site of the old Ashley Street School was chosen because of its central location near downtown, because the city already owns the land and other factors.
“Traffic concerns will have to be addressed, that is one of the priorities as we move forward with the school,” Sullivan said. “We’re excited about the project and we hope it moves forward quickly.”
He declined to discuss the merits of the residents’ concerns because the matter is the subject of litigation in Hampden Superior Court. A zoning board decision related to the site is in dispute.
Elizabeth and Ernest Simmons, who live just a few doors down from the Larsens, said they do not oppose a school but the size of the large building on a half a lot. Elizabeth Simmons noted that Westfield is 47 square miles, the second most geographically spread out town in the state, and there is no need to cram the school into a dense residential neighborhood.
Ernest Simmons, 88, said he attended the former school and noted that he and a group of fellow students planted what is now a huge oak tree at the corner of the lot to memorialize Miss Gold, a principal who died when they were youngsters.
“We all put some items, like a time capsule, in a jar and buried it with the tree when we planted it. It’s in the roots of that tree somewhere, and that will be one of the first things to go,” Ernest Gold said.
Larsen said she has myriad safety concerns that coincide with a school of that size with what they believe will be woefully inadequate parking.
Sullivan said the school department will have to address many concerns including relocating students from other schools.