Why I Support the Sandwich Safety Substation Location at SHS
by Dr. Richard Canfield, Superintendent
The Sandwich School Committee voted to support Article 11 as it appears on the Warrant for the Special Town Meeting scheduled for Monday, February 9 at 7:00PM at the Sandwich High School.
Article 11
To see if the Town will vote to transfer the care, custody, control, and management of land shown on a plan entitled “Site Plan – Substation at Sandwich High School” as prepared by Kaestle Boos Associates, Inc. and dated January 21, 2015, said land consisting of approximately 0.7 acres located at the Sandwich High School property, Assessors Map 34, Lot 2, from the School Committee for educational purposes to the Board of Selectmen for general municipal purposes, including the construction of a public safety facility, or take any action relative thereto.
As superintendent of schools, I have recommended approval for the location of the substation, citing the following reasons:
- Its location on the school campus offers increased opportunities for students interested in a career in Emergency Services–Fire, Police, EMS through mentoring, internships and specialized training.
- Its location would provide added security, and rapid response time to the district’s largest school campus, and hub of many community events.
- The requisite traffic study to be included in the project provides an opportunity to improve the traffic pattern at the Quaker Meetinghouse location.
- The SHS location will provide good coverage to East Sandwich but is outside of the flood zone. During recent storms, the current (unstaffed) East Sandwich substation was essentially an island that was not accessible.
- The SHS site has good access to the Service Rd and Route 6.
- The article transfers the care, custody, control, and management of approximately 0.7 acres of land out of a total H.S. site that’s nearly 63 acres. The unusable street hockey rink was in this space – the town has set aside space at Sandwich Hollows, should there be an opportunity to re-build the rink.
Additional renderings of the substation are available to view here: Substation HS- 200 scale