Calls on Attorney General Not to Waste Funds Fighting Action
(TRENTON) – Assembly Deputy Majority Leader Reed Gusciora (D-Mercer/Hunterdon) applauded the Trenton District Board of Education’s law suit over the Schools Development Authority’s (SDA) failure to address the ongoing repairs or renovation of the Trenton Central High School (TCHS). Gusciora called the suit, “an appropriate action, at the appropriate time.”
“It is critical that children in Trenton have the proper learning facilities,” Gusciora said. “It was the previous lack of action which has brought TCHS to its current state. As a result, the already outdated building has become even more distressed, parts literally condemnable.”
The announcement of the suit coincides with the recent discovery of the TCHS’s auditorium floor being structurally unsound, leaving the auditorium off limits to students for the foreseeable future. On recent tours of the high school the Assemblyman has also noted leaking roofs, warped classroom floors, black mold along stairwells, and a general crumbling infrastructure.
Gusciora also called on the Attorney General not to waste taxpayer funds challenging the suit.
“If I were the AG, I’d tour the school, and then go right into the court room and make it known that the state will not challenge the law suit,” said Gusciora. “Anything less than a full commitment to break ground on a new high school in the capital district in the Spring of 2014 would be to further the benign neglect of the state to fulfill its responsibilities to urban schools.”
Gusciora has all along criticized the SDA for offering nothing more than “pre-design services” and “investigat[e] .. conditions,” and “continue to identify” problems with the school.
“I don’t even know what ‘pre-design’ services are,” said Gusciora. “The students in the Capital district of New Jersey deserve to have a 21st learning environment where they can learn on par with other neighboring school districts,” concluded Gusciora. “And while the law suit addresses the short term goal of having the state reimburse them for emergent repairs made to the building, we need to work on the long term goal of rebuilding the school in its entirety.”