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D.G. says school can't afford to wait on land sale any longer
By Arpon Basu
St-Lambert Journal Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Chambly Academy High School will benefit from nearly $1 million in improvements coming from the Riverside School Board and the provincial government.
RSB director-general Kevin Lukian says the school board can no longer wait for the the sale of its land behind the Green Street school to make much-needed improvements at Chambly Academy.
"we diecided to invest in Chambly Academy because we can't wait forever," Lukian says. "It's been so long that we've wanted to invest in this school."
The RSB will take about $580,000 from the $700,000 that is received from the sale of Vincent Massey Elementary School in St.Hubert, which shut down its doors last year, and pour it into improvements at Chambly Academy. The rest of the $120,000 will go to the school board's four other elementary schools in St. Hubert.
The School board's money will pay for improvements to Chambly Academy's washrooms and renovating the building's main hallway that runs parallel to Green Street. The provincial government will also pour about $400,00 into building new labs at the school, a requirement of the secondary education reforms underway province-wide.
Lukian says work on the hallway and washrooms will begin this summer in what he hopes will be the first of three straight summers of improvements at Chambly Academy.
The school board's priority for the building is to improve the gymnasium, cafeteria and library, which Lukian estimates will cost somewhere in the neighbourhood of $3 million.
"I put those into one category." Lukian says.
The other category is $3 million worth of general improvements like the ones that will be done this summer.
"We really need both (categories) as far as I am concerned," Lukian says. "Halfway won't cut it in that school."
In that context, the investment of $580,000 this summer is only a drop in the bucket/ The biggest portion of the revenue to pay for these improvements would be the sale of the land behind the school.
The RSB has been attempting to sell the land for years and the provincial government has targeted the site to build a long-term care hospital, but the project has run into consistent resistence from nearby residents because it would require a zoning change they are opposed to. The City of St. Lambert is looking at ways to buy the land and negotiate directly with the province on the construction of the hospital.
Lukian says sale of the land would bring in about $1.8 million which would go directly to the improvements at Chambly Academy.
"The biggest part of that investment is tied to the land sale," Lukian says.
In an ideal world, Lukian would like to start construction of the the new gym in the fall of 2007, and then do the the cafeteria and library in the summers of 2008 and 2009.
None of that can happen, however, until the school board's land behind the school is sold.
Believe those who seek the truth. Doubt those who find it.
Andre Gide
