Town board gets insight into school buildings history, future

By NEAL RENTZ

A member of several Katonah-Lewisboro School District committees provided the Lewisboro Town Board with information about the former Lewisboro Elementary School and said the district has no intention to sell the property.

The former school is home for some of the town’s offices, Town Court and the Lewisboro Police Department.

Michael Lynch, a member of various school district committees over the years, was invited to the April 28 work session by Councilwoman Andrea Rendo. Professionally, Lynch is a school facilities director. 

Rendo said she and Lynch had a conversation a few weeks ago about the former elementary school and the building the property the district owns on Shady Lane. 

“It became eminently clear that Mike has a wealth of information on the topic,” she said. 

Lynch is knowledgeable about the closing of the elementary school and what various school district committees have discussed regarding the future of the property, Rendo said. Information from Lynch could provide guidance on how the town board should move forward when it will no longer be able to rent out the former school, she said.

In the early 1990s the district decided to expand and modernize its buildings, the first time it did such projects in about 30 years, Lynch told the town board. Lynch said he co-chaired the committee on the school district’s buildings at the time.

The first thing the committee did was a survey of the buildings, Lynch said.  Subsequently, the committee made recommendations for the buildings, he said, and the committee also helped to hire an architectural firm.

About 2003, the town board appointed him as chairman of a committee that explored the potential renovation and expansion of town facilities, including a possible central town campus Lynch said. 

In March 2024, the school district appointed another committee to examine the former elementary school and its property on Shady Lane, Lynch said. “The discussions were confidential until an official report was given by the committee to the Board of Education,” he said, adding, “In no way, shape or form was the school district going to entertain selling the Lewisboro Elementary School property.”

The committee recommended in May 2024 that the school district keep the Shady Lane property and tear the building down if the state Historic Preservation Office allows them to do so, Lynch said. 

“I was against it. I thought they should sell the property,” he said. 

The school district is faced with several large expenses with the former school, Lynch said.

“Every five years, by New York state law, it has to have a building conditions survey done by a licensed professional engineer or architect or both,” Lynch said. 

Much work would need to be done for the building to become a school again, Lynch said. “The windows are out of date. The roof is shot. It needs a new water system” he said. “It needs millions of dollars of work.”

The school district has hired an architectural firm and officials are awaiting information from it, Lynch said. The school district has received many suggestions, not a report, from the committee and it wants the architectural firm to tell it what the costs would be.

Councilman Richard Sklarin asked Lynch if the school district would consider allowing the town to use part of the property for such facilities as a police headquarters or a community center.

“It wasn’t discussed by the committee,” Lynch replied. “They discussed pre-K. They discussed keeping the gym. They discussed making the whole thing a sports complex.”

The committee has not discussed partnerships with the school district or other entities, Lynch said. 

Rendo asked Lynch if there were communications between the district and the town about how much longer the town could rent the building.

“I asked specifically, Does the town know about what your future plans are for the property?” Lynch replied. “The first answer l got was we’re not renewing the lease. We’re going month to month.” The comments came from the district in the summer of 2024, he said.

Lynch said he was told by Superintendent of Schools Ray Blanch that town officials were informed about the district’s plan to end its practice of having annual leases with the town. Instead, the former school would be rented to the town on a month-by-month basis, Lynch said. 

Rendo said she was recently told by the superintendent “that their intention was to mothball the school and is not scheduled to reopen it in any capacity until 2029 or 2030.”

“My suggestion would be to find a temporary solution and make a really detailed, reasoned, well thought-out plan forward both financially and from a practical point of view,” Lynch told the town board. 

Public weighs in

Some of the residents who spoke during a public comment period of the regular town board meeting expressed concerns about the situation regarding the town’s use of the former school.

Timi Parsons said she watched the former elementary school being closed. “It was heartbreaking for the community around the South Salem hamlet,” she recalled. 

When the town moved some of its offices into the former school  “it became, in a way, a community center again,” Parsons said. “And it was alive again, in a different way.” Having the town have no say over the building was “very sad,” she said. “I don’t know what we can do about it.” Residents who pay school taxes should have more of a say in the former school’s future, she said.

Another resident, Nick Lung-Bugenski, said, “As a taxpayer in the town, and this is where we came to raise our girls, it means we put our treasure in this place to do the really best by them.”’

Lung-Bugenski said growing up in Michigan there was cooperation between his municipality and school district, he said. “We are all the solution. Ultimately, this all comes from we the taxpayers. That we all want to see more communication, more partnerships to maximize the efficiencies.”