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Madison Debates Process for Island as OLMPA Requests Lease Renewal

Our Lady of Mercy Preparatory Academy (OLMPA) officially requested a one-year extension for its lease of the Island Avenue School building, with the Board of Selectmen (BOS) now considering whether to approve the private K-8 school for another year under previously agreed on terms while the town seeks a long-term solution for the property.

A vote on the lease will not come until sometime in January 2021 at the earliest, according to First Selectman Peggy Lyons, as the town looks for more clarity on the long-term fate of the school. Officials have made clear this needs to be decided sooner rather than later to avoid leaving Island in limbo the way the Academy School building has sat for more than a decade.

OLMPA is in its second year occupying Island, which closed after Madison’s schools completed a redistricting in 2019 in response to declining enrollment. Last spring, the town signed an agreement for a $400,000 a year lease for 2020-’21, with the option for the BOS to approve another year under the same terms.

It is not yet clear whether or not a town meeting—likely a virtual one—will be required to approve the lease renewal. The BOS circumvented that requirement last spring when initially approving the lease under the auspices of an executive order from Governor Ned Lamont that waived certain town meeting requirements due to the pandemic.

Currently a citizen’s committee called the Ad-Hoc Island Avenue Future Use Committee is working to determine viable options for long-term uses of the Island Avenue property. Lyons said she had hoped for some sort of “options analysis” delivered to the BOS in December as that committee works on several other larger projects, including a possible scientific poll of Madison townspeople and a request for proposals (RFP) on the property.

“I know that they were working hard on a number of different things and preferred to delay,” Lyons said.

She added she hoped to have the committee present to the BOS during its first meeting in January.

The OLMPA Perspective

OLMPA has made it clear it’s interested in purchasing the Island property as a permanent home for the school. OLMPA’s chair, John Picard, who also serves on Madison’s Board of Finance, told The Source recently that enrollment has increased since the school moved to the new building, and that the community is extremely happy with the location and amenities.

Picard also spoke about how OLMPA can offer ancillary benefits to Madison, such as use of the gym and playground facilities, and has already shown itself as a positive member organization in the community.

The approval of a new lease, which would lock in OLMPA until at least July of 2022, is dependent on how quickly the town can identify and approve a permanent use of the property, according to Lyons. Selling it will almost certainly require a referendum.

The RFP, which is currently being formulated, could be written narrowly or broadly to include many different types of potential uses, from its current function as a school all the way to residential housing. The creation of that document should be “guided” by the BOS, Lyons said.

Island Avenue Future Use Committee Chair Graham Curtis has previously said that whether an RFP or public opinion poll comes first in the process is a difficult question. If a poll showed that townsfolk (who will have to approve the final use of the property) are not open to a particular use or purpose for Island, then that use does not need to be part of the RFP.

Conversely, the RFP could provide important information about market conditions, costs, and the viability of certain uses, all of which might affect what voters want.

The Island Avenue Future Use Committee has also been contending with other ancillary issues including an heir search, as the heirs of the original property owner have the right of first refusal, a legal term that means the heir(s) must be offered the chance to purchase the property before any other entity is allowed to.

Selectman Bruce Wilson questioned whether the committee has “drifted way off their charge,” saying that putting an RFP together was premature and comparing the process to how the town approached Academy.

“I’m worried that we’re talking about taking action and not soliciting broader community input,” Wilson said.

Lyons emphasized that community input would be “critical,” and that will likely come after the committee presents its work so far in January.