When returning to Lexington after time away, I learned that the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection had received a request for an appeal to the Lexington High School’s order of conditions. To me and many others, this is great news. Bloom, or as I call it “The Palace in the Park”, should have never been proposed on this environmentally sensitive land. Bloom would destroy our large center open space that has served all Lexingtonians for over a century. Its connectivity to the rest of our center playground is a vital part of our large contiguous open space. This land was gifted to all Lexington’s citizens by Augustus Scott in 1915 exclusively for “parks and playgrounds”. It’s truly a Town treasure.

The land is a flood plain hosting various wetlands that serve as critical protection to land susceptible to flooding. I’ve lived within a block of these fields for over 77 years. I’ve seen flooding many times.

While chairing the Town’s building committee in the nineties, during the renovation of the present High School, we considered use this land but quickly rejected it for both environmental and functional reasons.

The Bloom proposal, a sixty-foot-high masonry monster, has been a terrible plan since its conception over 3 years ago. Lexington has been coerced into accepting it because better alternatives were not seriously debated. SMMA, our designers, offered a very viable plan, C6, back in 2024. It was never discussed in public. It would have stayed off our park, avoided all wetland impacts, avoided Article 97 protected land and delivered much needed classrooms two years before Bloom could.

From the beginning, Bloom was forced upon us to the point people thought it was “too big to fail”. Political pressures were unduly applied.

The courage of the citizens who are challenging it should be applauded. We, now, have a chance to do the right thing for Lexington’s future citizens. Open land built upon is lost forever. The proposed replacement fields on the other side of Bloom will not offer the large connected open space we all now enjoy.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. Please, Lexington, do the right thing.

Peter Kelley

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