The Editor,
I am a supporter of the Chelsea Foundation. I agree with the headline, “We need a school in an urgent way” (March 20 edition). My youngest daughter entered Grand Boisé school in maternelle in its first year of operation. Both my daughters attended and graduated from that school. Both live and work in Montreal in French and in English. I gave financial support to that school when my kids were there, and I may do the same for the new school once it is built. The new school is very much needed. Whether the new school needs to be a monument to the mayor is another matter.
I think that the mayor is not working hard enough to find a location that both provides for a new school and does not require the expropriation of land from a registered charity created to provide for the public good in Chelsea.
The mayor has decided where the new school must be and then calls for the owner of the land at that site to be flexible. I call upon the mayor to set aside his dream of the perfect site for the new school and try instead, as hard as he possibly can, to find an acceptable location for the new school that may not be the perfect site that he dreams of. I don’t have the sense that the mayor wants to do anything of the sort, however.
I understand why the parents would want the perfect site. It would be a great location for the school, except that it is probably too small. (Only time will tell if it is too small, if the school is built where the mayor wants it built.) But it is unfortunate for the parents that the perfect site is on someone else’s land – land that was purchased by a charity with the significant financial support of members of the Chelsea community and for a different public interest purpose than a school.
Alan (Jake) Blair
Chelsea, QC