Common Council OKs New Locker Room at MHS

Except for concerns expressed by one member of the public during the open public meeting, it was a calm and harmonious Thursday night for the Middletown Common Council.  

The only item on the Special Meeting agenda was to vote on an ordinance appropriating $750,000 for the construction of locker room facilities at Middletown High School and authorization to issue a bond to meet the appropriation.  There was near unanimous support. 

Councilman David Bauer was the only dissenting voice; he stated that the request represented "a substantial amount of revenue" and expressed concern that there was "too much borrowing for too many projects" that he could not support.  

One member of the public spoke in favor of the proposal for the locker facilities.  Recently retired PE teacher Deb Petruzello stated that the lockers would make the high school "a premiere facility" and provide the opportunity to be rented to outside organizations, which could defray other costs.  

Overall there was strong bipartisan support for the project. Councilman Phil Pessina stated, "This completes the school project and gives us a facility we can be proud of."  

Councilman Dan Drew echoed Pessina's words by stating, "I concur, this completes the project."  

Councilman Faulkner requested that the Locker Room Committee be cognizant of minority business involvement in the construction of the project.  

Councilman Bibisi shared, "I want to commend the good work of the Locker Committee.  And if I know (Locker Committee Chair) Rich Bergan, he's going to squeeze a lot out of this budget."  

In an interview, Mayor Giuliano said, “It needs to be done.  Not only is it a problem for visiting teams to not have access to locker facilities, but when it’s comes time for football playoffs, Middletown would not be considered as a site for those games."  

He continued that the field, concessions and lockers can work as a stand-alone facility and rented out without having to open up the school building.

"The community benefits from the exposure.  It allows people from outside of the city to see our community and its assets in a positive light."

He added, “Someday we will probably want to increase the stadium seating capacity, too.  The existing risers were specifically designed to be able to add capacity.  That’s an enhancement that we also hope for in the future.”

Democratic Majority Leader Tom Serra has served on the High School Building Committee from 2005 to the present.  

“Plans for the new building had one-third fewer lockers than were at the Hunting Hill Avenue facility and there was no contingency funding available to correct it.”  He added that the lockers would be used for both the athletic teams as well as students in the physical education classes.  

“It needs to be done.  You can’t have a beautiful state-of-the art high school without an adequate amount of lockers.”  

Prior to the start of the meeting, the Council held an open-topic, community hearing for any member of the public who wished to speak.

Local resident Mr. Sal Caracoglia let off steam about a complaint he had made to the Middletown Police Department that did not get the reaction he expected.  Chief McMahon was in attendance but was not asked to comment.  

Mayor Giuliano and the members of the Council patiently listened to Mr. Caracoglia's lengthy and sometimes hard to follow list of concerns with respect and offered him guidance on next steps for his complaint.