A liquor store, a cannabis shop, beer pong parties right outside and across the way — an ideal setting for off-campus university housing, maybe. But for a K-5 school?

I’m disturbed by factions in town browbeating elected officials and the public into accepting the current Fort River elementary site as the perfect location for the new school building.

If those making the biggest push for the Fort River site were architects, green building experts, or urban planners, I’d be inclined to listen. But they are not. Instead, some are the same voices who’ve been blocking projects with access to state funding since the failed elementary school project six years ago. When some of these folks send their children to private school, disrespect elected officials in the alternative media, and claim “wokeness” to justify attacks on anyone promoting progress, it makes me question their motives.

A recent Gazette column about Fort River being the “superior site,” with “plenty of space away from cars and buses for kids to run around, for teachers to hold lessons….” This is also true of the Wildwood site. The writer worries that, if not used, the Fort River space and a town-owned building “would be at risk because the property could be sold or leased for development.”

So, are we to choose the elementary school location based on preventing hypothetical development rather than what’s best for our children? Shouldn’t we prefer reasoned analysis over fearmongering.

Are people trying to justify the $250,000 Fort River feasibility study Amherst was compelled to undertake? Between the two sites, Wildwood is the one that’s walkable — it’s embedded in a residential neighborhood where kids already walk/bike to school. The hope is that many more will do so in the future.

Conversely, over the years, Fort River has lost student enrollment as the area has become saturated with undergraduate rentals. Why put an elementary school where fewer families live? Why not situate it near the center of town, where it’s connected to the other district buildings?

If Amherst is forced to pick the Fort River site, any parents driving their kids to that 575-student location should remember to factor in time for traffic at Route 9 or Pelham Road, heading for UMass.

These same people have proposed plans for the Wildwood site: senior center, ESL hub, BIPOC teen space. Why duplicate community services already in the works? The renovated/expanded, accessible Jones Library will have designated ESL and teen rooms! Why discredit this inclusive endeavor? I certainly don’t want my brown child separated from her peers at a less-central teen space. I’d like her to navigate a diverse world without being limited by her skin tone.

As I watch the theatrics around the school building debate yet again, I’m asking Amherst residents to think hard about choices. What’s more important: the safety of our students and a well-deliberated plan — or questionable personal agendas?

Farah Ameen lives in Amherst.