The public records cited in this section, in the order they appear: the minutes, packets and recordings of Andover's own meetings.
At the March 16, 2021 Board of Selectmen meeting, a consultant presenting plans for a community center walked the board through square footage, design costs and a site survey, and argued for the money to draw the project. He recounted its history on the record: sought since 1969, present in five consecutive plans of development, and the top item on the town's own long- range survey. He then said: "our first attempt two years ago was to use the unutilized 50% school capacity floor space. That was shot down by the Board of Education and the PTA," adding, "we keep spinning our wheels. We're doing what the town tells us to do, but no one's allowing us to do anything" (~1:03:26). Before the town built on the school's grounds, it had asked to use empty space inside the school, and the school had refused. The meeting approved staged architectural work from a reserve the town had been building for several budget cycles. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8MAn- kVe3k
A public comment left on the "A Town Asset" series post in a town Facebook group. Lori Blake, identifying herself as a PTA member at the time of the senior-center siting discussions, responds to the series' statement that the town's request to use the school's unused floor space had been "shot down by the Board of Education and the PTA." She states that the PTA had no vote in the matter and so did not formally say no, but that its members, herself included, spoke out against siting the center in the school over security, usage, and parking concerns, and met with school personnel and the superintendent, whose position aligned with that view. This is a firsthand recollection stated publicly by a named participant, not a town record; it is cited as testimony to that effect, offered contemporaneously and under her own name, and it is the basis for the correction appended to the senior- center piece. Facebook comment permalinks are unstable and archive.org could not capture the page, so the linked image is a self-hosted screenshot preserving the comment as it stood; the original Facebook comment is at facebook.com/groups/2788103908136116/posts/4659730580973430 (comment_id 4660364534243368), which may or may not resolve for a given reader.
At the December 12, 2022 Board of Selectmen meeting the town administrator reported an upcoming planning and zoning hearing on "the zone change that will enable a community center to be built on the town's property," and that a surveyor had been researching the town's records and walking the School Road parcel (~39:39). At the January 9, 2023 meeting he reported that the survey was due and that he had filed the statutory 8-24 referral for the community center parcel "on behalf of the board of selectmen, from myself," which the commission approved (~1:45:54, ~1:47:51). Each of these steps was an ordinary, public municipal process. The Board of Education's own account, given the following June, is that its building committee had not met since May 2022, that it had "been in the dark," and that its first notice was a map; the First Selectman said at that meeting that he should have done a better job of inviting a board member onto the committee.
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 June 12, 2023 Board of Selectmen meeting, with members of the school board and the superintendent present, the selectmen took up a list of safety and deed concerns the Board of Education had submitted about the community and senior center being built on the elementary school grounds. First Selectman Jeff Maguire, presiding, treated the concerns as matters for the architect, builder, engineer and fire marshal rather than for the board, and the project moved forward. He stated that the school building is "a town asset" and that "it's all the same pot of funds -- the school is town money, the roads are town money, the parking lot is town money" (~14:46). At the same meeting the board voted 4-0 to establish a separate AES Capital Fund. Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-u_Seb_VrE
At the July 12, 2023 Board of Education meeting the board reported that the memorandum of understanding it had drafted, at a selectman's request, had been rejected -- not by a vote or a letter, but by the town administrator speaking at a planning and zoning meeting: "Eric Anderson said the town will not sign the MOU that we presented" (~37:52). A board member noted that three selectmen, including the First Selectman, were present at that meeting and none contradicted him (~38:10). The board had received no formal response from the Board of Selectmen to a document that board had asked it to produce, and voted to seek one in writing (~40:38). The board chair also reported that he had raised the town administrator's conduct with the First Selectman, who acknowledged it was not correct and said he would speak to him (~43:52), and that the First Selectman had invited him to the groundbreaking (~46:40).
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.
