Comment to Eric posting on Disaster Recovery

Hi Eric -

There are many questions, but I honestly think they are being answered as best possible.  They may not be the answers people like, because many of us are used to immediate results or at least being able to fix things at our own pace.  It is difficult to accept that sometimes we cannot control the effects of Mother Nature.  Neither the Town, nor the Board of Education are withholding information.  I also know that the information provided on the Mayor’s calls was responsive to many of the questions emailed to the Town – either directly addressed by the speakers as each took their turn, or at the end in a Q&A format.  A primary concern, for example, is power.  Neither the Town nor the BOE can fix the lines or move the trees that are covered in downed lines until the lines are cleared.   So we wait.  The updates provided by PSE&G on the Mayor’s Town Hall are in real time – you are hearing it as everyone else is hearing it.  I was out of power for over a week.  While it was very frustrating, I never had any doubt that the Mayor, the Town Council or the Board of Ed were doing everything within their power to help in the circumstances. 

I can also tell you that the Town and BOE have had excellent daily communications and updates.  That is critical.    Another public meeting right now would not make it any better.   With regard to the BOE’s decisions, feedback from the Town is crucial.  But it is just that – feedback.  Dr. Dolan makes the call each day as to whether and when Schools will open.  Many other data points go into that decision. 

You ask many questions of the BOE in your post – here are the answers: 

When are schools opening --- you must know that three opened today (Thursday) and all will be open tomorrow (Friday).  We have sent updates via Honeywell every day since the storm, and via Patch every day since I have had power.  Often, more than one notice per day has gone out. 

How will days be made up for school – we don’t know yet.  As you should have heard me say publicly, step one is to understand how many days we will have to miss overall.  With Schools opening in full tomorrow (Friday) we now know that answer.  Step two is to see whether the State will grant relief.  Based on everything I have read, I am not counting on it, but I won’t rule it out.  Step three will be to have public discussion at public Board meetings with respect to our options.   At the same time, we are not sitting by doing nothing.  As you must know, we already are making up two days for high school and middle school students and one day for all elementary students this week. 

What is the decision process on opening schools – as I have said publicly – Dr. Dolan is the decision maker.  She spent a fair chunk of her days during the past two weeks surveying the schools, travelling the roads, talking to administrators and staff, discussing safety and travel concerns with the Town, and many other things.   I have spent a considerable number of hours with Dr. Dolan on the safety topic alone.   As was made clear on several occasions, safety dictated that our schools remain closed.  The schools were otherwise ready to go within two days of the storm (a lack of power and an inability to safely access the schools by road and sidewalk prevented us from opening them).  Board members no doubt provided feedback to Dr. Dolan as did many members of the public.   But it is not determined by majority vote – it is determined by one person who the Board has entrusted to make such decisions.

Why doesn’t the Board have an official social media site and why was the District website down for a week – The Board previously discussed social media publicly on several occasions and concluded it did not want such a site.   During our outage, social media was in fact helpful in many ways.  As just one example, it was used to find a generator to power up Wilson Elementary School within minutes of a request being made.   But misinformation was also transmitted via social media.   The District web page was down simply because power to the high school was down.  The issues of social media and establishing appropriate back up systems for emergencies will be discussed publicly at Board of Education meetings in the near term.  Mitch and Gary – further to your comments above, please be prepared to contribute big time on these issues.

I am sure that many members of the community do have suggestions on how to move forward.  Some have emailed ideas, and I can tell you that some of the ideas are good, some have already been considered, and some are simply self-serving without regard to the rest of the community.  I am confident that the BOE will have lengthy public discussions about what we have learned from this “once in a lifetime” storm, so that we can be even better prepared the next time one occurs.  I do not believe that a joint public meeting with the Town, the BOE, PSE&G, etc., etc., would be a productive use of everyone’s time right now, because  I do not think that it would get you the answers you are looking for.  We need to continue to push forward through this natural disaster and we will then have the time to reflect and to ensure we learn from this one and to prepare for the next.  I hope that you attend our upcoming Board meetings and raise your ideas for discussion.  We will listen and respond.

In closing, I want to reiterate what is really important here.   The Mayor, The Town Council, The Town Administrator, The Police Chief, the Fire Chief, the Board of Education, our Administration and so many others, including many of our private citizens, have not stopped for one minute working together and caring for all of the members of our community to help all of us get through this.   There are frustrations, and it is easy to cast blame and point fingers.  But please keep in mind what is really going on here.

Thanks.

Rich Mattessich, President, Westfield Board of Education