The public records cited in this section, in the order they appear: the minutes, packets and recordings of Andover's own meetings.
Asked from the floor about the mask mandate at the elementary school, First Selectman Jeff Maguire, presiding, answered: "This board doesn't have anything to do with the school mandate or how it's addressed. That's the Board of Education. Just so before everybody goes down that road, this board has control of public buildings such as the town hall, the library, the museum, and those types of facilities" (~2:19:39). The question he was answering concerned a school health policy, and his answer concerns which board governs the school. No minutes for this meeting are posted; the speaker is identified from the recording. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y8S8zglWek
First Selectman Jeff Maguire and Selectwoman Paula King came to the June 14, 2023 Board of Education meeting for a conversation about the community center; the minutes record the chair welcoming them by name. He answered the board's written safety questions, then took up the memorandum of understanding the board's attorney had drafted. On the record he set out the town's position: "The town of Andover is the school district... The town owns all the land. The town owns all the buildings. The town is the owner of everything. There are no deeded properties to a school or to a board of education" (~38:30). Of the memorandum he said "it's not necessary that we really do that," while agreeing to review it, and said the town would go to planning and zoning and move forward (~39:38). Asked whether the school should budget to pave its own upper parking lot, he answered: "It should go to CIP... It's a town asset. This building is a town asset" (~54:01), and earlier, "It's all town money. I don't split hairs" (~50:58). He also told the board he does not tell the Board of Education how to spend its money, that he was not going to kill their budget, that he took responsibility for not having invited a board member onto the building committee, and he agreed to quarterly meetings between the boards. The board chair replied that there is a deeded school line on the site-plan map and that the board has statutory control of school property (~1:05:04). Official minutes: https://www.andoverelementaryct.org/images/boe/Minutes/BOE_Minutes_61423.pdf
At the December 4, 2024 joint meeting of the selectmen, the finance board and the school board, the dispute over the elementary school's capital projects played out at length. First Selectman Jeff Maguire told the Board of Education the school "is not a board of education building, it's a town asset, it's part of the capital," and that state law "says that the town owns the assets inside this building," while the board has "total control how you educate children" (~11:02-11:52). He demanded a five-year capital plan routed through the town's capital improvement committee, "just like every other group within this community" (~13:16). The Board of Education answered that the committee makes recommendations which then go to the selectmen for approval, so what was being proposed was that the school seek the selectmen's approval for its own capital money (~15:57). The superintendent set out the statutory position: by law the board of education "shall have the care, maintenance and operation of buildings, lands," and in other towns school capital does not go to the selectmen for approval (~28:47-43:07). Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B9O-4anXqk
Across the June 9 and June 12, 2025 Board of Selectmen meetings, First Selectman Jeff Maguire challenged the Board of Finance's authority to move the school's unexpended year-end appropriation into the AES capital fund, arguing the transfer was done incorrectly and should require a town-meeting vote. He restated his framing that the school is town property: "The school building is a town asset. The town hall is a town asset. The community center is a town asset," and that the capital fund "is a town account, not a board of education account." The superintendent objected on the record ("respectfully, Mr. Maguire, you're offering some misinformation... we have a good auditor who has done right by this town"). The town's auditor subsequently found no impropriety in the transfer. On June 12 the board voted to set a town meeting on the question.
The Andover assessor's records show the entire School Road complex titled to the Town of Andover: the elementary school parcel at 35 School Road (10.7 acres, use "Schools-Public," deed Volume 15 Page 131); the town hall at 17 School Road (0.92 acres, deed Volume 19 Page 151, acquired 1963); and the vacant lot behind the town hall where the community and senior center was built (3.0 acres, deed Volume 20 Page 272, acquired 1965). The school district holds no title to any of it, and has not for sixty years. No land was transferred from the school district to the town, because none was ever held by the district.