#8 False

All four major capital projects are equally necessary. The Town cannot escape responsibility for its physical assets: the capital projects are long overdue and essential, and delay simply increases their cost. Furthermore, the Town’s financial plan enables us to build all of them IF we take advantage of outside funding. We need to act now on the library because the $14 million grant is on the table – we cannot tell the MBLC to hold it for us for 3-5 years while we build a school. We need to take the money or leave it, now.  Since we cannot afford to undertake all the projects at the same time, some project must come first. An elementary school building project was first, one can argue, but was kicked to the back of the pack by Town Meeting. It will likely come to a vote next year because, again, that’s the schedule we need to follow in order to receive state money for a new school. Amherst is not the boss of the funding authorities, nor can it afford these projects without the state grants.