Published on 01/31/2002

To the Editor of The Day:
The recent initiative by Gov. Rowland to reconsider the Chestnut Street site as a possible home for a collocated Three Rivers Community College is the most recent example of a process gone crazily awry.

Renovations have been planned for the college since 1992; a consolidated campus is desperately needed in order to provide adequate, modern facilities and resources for the communities of southeastern Connecticut.

The proposals currently on the table, the Thames Valley site on the New London Turnpike. and the downtown proposal of the Chelsea Development group, are designed on the allocated project budget of $62 million, a figure put forth in 1998.

With that projected allocation, each of these proposals admittedly cannot provide a complete and adequate comprehensive college that would also address future growth and development. The 1998 dollar amount dwindles each year in the comparative results the money can buy; we certainly can't get the same $62 million college now that we would have in 1998. And with each year's delay, we get less, and the planning and proposals are scaled back and compromised.

And now the governor has re-introduced the Chestnut Street site into the mix, a project that would have cost a projected $89 million in 1998, and certainly closer to $100 million now, especially in light of extensive brownfields cleanup issues involved with the old mill sites.

If this site is a viable consideration, then wouldn't it be appropriate for southeastern Connecticut to strongly suggest that the funds be directed towards the construction of a new college either at or adjacent to the Norwich Hospital site? Three Rivers is the community college serving all of southeastern Connecticut.

The Norwich Hospital/Brewster Point proposals have always been the most sensible in terms of access and the potential for growth and development. Any decisions based on funding determinations from 1998 only shortchange the region and seriously compromise the ability of the college to serve the part of Connecticut that is dynamically growing and changing more than any other region in the state.  

John Whitman
Westerly