By Mae Rhine, Managing Editor
MONROE — The word “community,” which inadvertently was included as part of the name of the new high school under construction, will be removed “as soon as feasible,” the district’s Buildings and Grounds Transportation Committee has decided.
The general contractor, Seacoast Builders Corp., of Freehold, will remove the word and respace the lettering to say Monroe Township High School.
The cost for changing the sign “is being negotiated,” said Business Administrator Michael Gorski at the Board of Education meeting Wednesday night.
He has said, however, that the cost for doing that is “immaterial.”
At the end of July, district officials noticed that above the main entrance, in raised letters, were the words “Monroe Township Community High School.”
The word “community” is not part of the school’s name at this time, although it has been considered and actually was on the blueprints, hence the mistake by the general contractor, Mr. Gorski said.
He said officials once considered adding “community” to the name, explaining, “It was in keeping with our philosophy that the school belongs to the community.”
Nothing was ever decided, but the name has stayed on the blueprints from the time the new school was approved by voters in 2003 at a total cost of $82.9 million. Construction was delayed, however, so the district went back to voters in December 2007 with the same project with a total price tag of $124.8 million because of increased costs for materials and labor. And still the name stayed on the plans.
The Buildings and Grounds Transportation Committee, at its meeting Aug. 11, voted to have Seacoast remove the name as soon as possible.
Also at Wednesday’s meeting, resident Michele Arminio, of Nathaniel Street, asked that pictures of dead plants be included as an attachment to the minutes of the meeting.
She wondered why the landscaper would be “planting in the middle of July during the heat wave.”
”If someone’s making mistakes, somebody’s got to be paying for it,” she said.
She asked who was paying for all the mistakes, including the wrong sign, and Mr. Gorski replied, “It’s still being negotiated.”
