The city has paid 10.5 million for the former Pope John High School assemblage in North Everett.
Now the city is giving it away to developers promising 140 affordable housing units in return.
This, at a time when the School Department is nearly out of viable options for added classroom space.
The administration has made its decision.
More affordable housing is more important than more classroom space for the city’s public school system.
Any way one chooses to weigh and measure this decision, it is wrong.
Providing an education and making space available for the children of this city to be educated is critical to the city’s well-being.
The city can get along without another 140 units of affordable housing.
It cannot get along if public school students do not have classrooms to be educated in.
Pope John was an educational institution for decades. The assemblage of buildings includes classroom space sufficient to meet the needs of Everett’s public school system.
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