Sarah Darer Littman doesn’t really know what she’s talking about except through the distorted lens of the Working Families Party-controlled School Board and their allies.

I find it very hard to believe that the board remained as unaware about the Harding High School project as Littman claims.

The School Building Committee meeting minutes are in the public record and would have been easily accessible to the school board members who aren’t members of the School Building Committee. The members of the school board who are members of the School Building Committee could have simply listened while attending meetings.

Chairwoman Sauda Baraka and her buddy John Bagley obviously know about the site because they voted on it February 2013. [Bridgeport Board of Education, 2/25/2013]

I also find it hard to believe that Bagley and the rest of the Working Families Party are deeply concerned about public input since they had no problem leaving the public in the dark about the supposed “public forum” they held on February 11th, 2014 which, in violation of their own bylaws, was never announced.

Remember it was Board Chairwoman Sauda Baraka who cancelled the public forum which was supposed to take place on January 31st, 2014. [Harding High School Website]

If anyone’s to blame for keeping the public in the dark, it’s the Working Families Party-controlled School Board.

Let’s also remember that the “deal” isn’t set. The property where the new Harding High School is set to be located is still owned by GE. The property hasn’t changed hands and won’t, according to city officials, until GE finishes the remediation process and the Board votes on the site plans.

Littman, of course, doesn’t divulge into these details because they don’t fit her accusation of racism.

I find it very curious that a woman from Cos Cob, Greenwich is suddenly interested in the “environmental racism” supposedly going on in Bridgeport.

She may not be aware of this, but Greenwich High School, the public high school that serves her community, in part sits on soil that has been contaminated since it was hauled in in the 1960s. [Connecticut Department of Public Health, Question and Answers about PCB Contamination at Greenwich High School]

Obviously this is an entirely different issue. Unlike Greenwich High School, the property the new Harding High School will be built on will be remediated and capped to Connecticut state environmental standards before students ever step foot in the new school.

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