Plans for new school cause controversy

CLINTON, Conn. (WTNH) -- A battle is underway in Clinton over plans for a new high school.

Back in the Spring voters said yes to the project, but now one group says this is not the time for a tax increase and they've hired a lawyer to try to kill the project.

The Morgan School football field is filled with 2012 graduates, but it's where the future classes will graduate from that's become a coarse conversation among Clinton neighbors.

All agree the school can't stay how it is, but they can't agree on what should be done about it.

"I think it's self serving and I think it's dangerous," said Peter Nye, Morgan School Building Committee, "and it should be interesting to see how it plays out over the next couple of months."

Back in April, a town referendum passed by 40 votes to increase taxes for a $64 million new school.

"It's an aging school. It was never designed for the New England climate," Nye said. "It's been added onto in many different ways over the years."

They already invested about $4 million in the piece of land and have some conceptual plans.

"It doesn't make any sense at all," said Pamela Fritz, President of Clinton Taxpayers Assoc., "we can take a perfectly wonderful Morgan and we can renovate it, and have a wonderful school system and not put a terrible burden on the taxpayers."

With petitions the Clinton Taxpayers Association helped schedule a special town hall meeting and got more than 300 signatures to have a new vote that would reduce the amount of money available for a new school from $64 million down to $5 million.

If validated, the town would go to the polls yet again.

"300 signatures or 100 signatures was never intended," Nye said, "any reasonable person would conclude this, to overturn the votes of 4,000 people, the highest turn out in the history of Clinton."

He says what they've found is a loophole.

"This is an exercise in democracy is what it is and that's what we're going forward with," said Fritz, "but it's not a loophole."