Mookie Wilson sent a Bob Stanley breaking ball, dribbling up the first baseline, which Bill Buckner playing on legs so bad that if he were a horse, they would have shot him, let go through his legs. I know. Why wasn't Dave Stapleton put in for defensive reasons as he was almost every other game in 19 Okay, we're going to move on. So, the Socks lost game six. The next day, the Socks led game seven by three runs, but somehow everyone knew it was not to be. They lost the series and didn't go back until 2004. And none of this would have happened if Handsome Harry for Zee, Handsome Harry, one of the nicknames I can say in public, if Mr. Fris, strapped for cash, had not sold off the babe to finance. No, no, no. The sail cursed the Red Sox to all those years of near misses.
His idea, simply put, was to recreate the college campus environment of those engineers we talked about by providing copious amounts of green lawns and trees and other landscaping. And by placing parking lots behind these well-designed low-rise buildings, he would not only provide a campus-like atmosphere, but make it easier for builders to obtain zoning changes and permits from towns around the road. This 1973 aerial shows us in the foreground the GT, the old GTE plant just off Taton Pond Road in Waltham. This site which was developed by Capid Kapid and forms has that campus style feel. Notice it the front of the building it's all green. It looks like a campus quad. And look further back closer to the highway and you see the old style industrial park with quanet huts and concrete and not a lot of green space. Blakeley's plan worked and boy did it ever.
So that would not be a figure we would negotiate then. So you we're just really negotiating the 20,000. Yes. I I apologize. I don't know why it says 97. It it seems like it's a total of something else. Okay. So we can cross that 97. So what we will be negotiating, I guess, is the 20,000. Am I right? Did I understand that that would go back to the compression committee? No. And let them decide. These are already approved dollars for compression. This is the com um the committee's recommendation um of using those dollars. So, we had a $200,000 right thing. And then the options that are on the option screen are the breakouts. I we've looked at a bunch of different numbers and a bunch of different groups and we've reported this out a couple of times. So, I apologize. I'm not sure if if numbers are getting compiled and totaled up, but for the facilities compression, we were not able to do a deep dive to get to any kind of number that would be 97,000.
Um, this is kind of a long report, but I I think I need to say a few things to kind of help explain and and and um acknowledge the past couple weeks we've had. The past couple weeks in GPS, uh, we've been met with guns on campuses, a student suicide on campus, and the passing of one of our longtime teachers. These tragic and alarming events shake a school, a school district, and a community to the core. First, for the family and friends of Jude Flor as a student at Highland High, we're so very sorry for Jude's passing. Uh we can only imagine what you're going through, but please know as a school district and as a school, we are here to help you get through anything you need and we will be here for you. Suicide is a very serious concern in Gilbert Public Schools, we've implemented suicide prevention programming as part of our signs of suicide prevention program since the school year 2012.
At least that was the legend. And that was the legend, frankly, I was happy to use in my musical. That's my Babe Ruth, played by a wonderful actor named JH Williston. He is surrounded by the ghosts of Red Sox failures. This shot is from the title song of the show, The Curse of the Bambino, in which all of the blame for the Red Sox troubles are laid on the head of one Harry Harrison Fris. But is it true? Not according to Dick Johnson, who is, by the way, the uh curator of the Boston Sports Museum at North Station. Visited. It's awesome. and Glenn Stout, a terrific writer of all sports. They chronicle in their book Red Sox Century, an ongoing escalating feud between Ban Johnson, our jealous autocrat, and Harry Fris, whom they paint as a smart, self-made man who was used to making his own decisions without interference.
Development friendly zoning laws in Waltham led to companies like GTE and Canada Dry and Thermo Electron to site their offices and plants. Wilmington welcomed defense contractor Avco. This sign advertises the availability of sites in the Peabody Industrial Center, another CCNF project near the current I95 interchange. The electronics firm Hitron was vigorously pursued by Beverly, which was helped in their efforts by the Department of Public Works, which built a bridge over 128 at Endicott Road to help seal the deal. This northerly view was taken in the spring of 1953, showing 128 as it passes over the Waters River, which was actually relocated as part of the highways construction. Middle Sex County did the same here in Wuburn, building an access row that helped secure a Sylvania electronics plant. Down in Dham, where 128 intersects with Route 1 and Route 95, the town zoned for several large industrial parks.
Um, all I can say is that because of the way that the salary schedules are set up, we're not able to move forward to address facilities compression at this moment in time until we do work on the salary schedules themselves. We've started that work with the teacher group to kind of learn how to pull some things together and we were very successful. The ESP salary schedule is way more complex. Every um item has three, four, five, six positions in addition to a facilities position. So the only way for us to address the facilities compression would be to pull those staff and those job responsibilities out and create a new schedule, which is what we want to do in the compression committee. We feel like that's the only way forward for success in order for us to address compression within specific groups. And it looks like we're getting some momentum with that compression because we were able to address the bus drivers, the psychologist, and teacher compression.
It is implemented and delivered to students in grades 5 through 12. The program is delivered in collaboration with the school site's behavioral health team members, social workers, psychologists, nurses, and counselors. The BHT members also present the information to staff members prior to students receiving the information and a process for referrals is discussed um is discussed uh should students or staff need to speak to a social worker, a psychologist or a counselor after the presentation. Communication regarding the presentation goes out to parents at least two weeks ahead of time before the presentation date so parents can review the PowerPoint presentation videos website and ask questions. The presentation dates uh need to be made clear often to parents uh with the dates of the presentation including the permission slips along with campuses names and a link to the uh signs of suicide web page. Gilbert Public Schools utilizes the parent opt- out permission slip as this is a critical topic impacting the safety of our students.
Oil and water. There were lots of things for each to be angry about. Uh Johnson made no secret of never wanting for Z to own the socks and he tried to block the sale. For Z tired of Johnson interfering with his club, including trying to avoid the sale of starcross pitcher Carl Mays to the Yankees, attempted a coup of sorts. He tried to get former President William Howard Taft to serve as a commissioner of baseball to basically usurp Johnson's power. The coup failed. Johnson claimed there was gambling going on at Fenway. Things got escalating. Fris saw this expensive legal battle looming. And with gate receipts uncertain in 1919. Remember, there was an influenza epidemic sweeping the country. He needed ready cash. So, he looked to sell some players. But here's the interesting part. What Johnson and Stout point out, five of the eight American League team owners supported Ban Johnson.
And this was the future home of the US Rubber Company. Okay, now for some numbers. In 1955, there were 53 commercial enterprises located around 128. In just four years, that number quadrupled to 226. And by 1967, there were over 729 commercial buildings around the highway, employing over 66,000 figure people. And that figure doesn't even take into account governmentr run offices and facilities. That is an amazing amount of growth in a very short period of time. So what would all those workers do after work? Why they get into their cars and spend their money? Perhaps going to one of the mammoth shopping malls that had been approved in Peodyy, Burlington, and Brainree. Here's the Northshore Mall in Peody in its early incarnation. By the 1950s, with New England's agricultural industry long in decline, developers found many farm owners eager to sell their properties at inflated prices that proximity to the new highway commanded.
Some of those other groups, we came back with feedback that said not at this time or uh didn't think that those groups needed the compression. I do feel like there's somebody missing. I have to say when you said the 97, I'm thinking that's the 46, the 24, and the 20 and somebody else. something was small nurses that was it. Yeah, that 97 was the total. And uh what was reported back to me from the last meeting was that we weren't that the nurses um because we could only look at one tiny group of the nurses, we wanted to put them back into the compression so that we could do the deep dive on the L uh I believe it was the LPN's. Um we're going to have to reach out specifically to other districts. um it's very time consuming and so that one will have to roll back into FY26 to be looked at in FY26.
In addition to the school year in school year 2021, um Senate Bill 1468 was enacted was enacted and required school districts to provide suicide prevention education awareness training to school personnel. The law requires school personnel receive a suicide prevention training that focuses on the identifying of the warning warning signs and learning about appropriate interventions in the referral process. Gilbert public schools has implemented the program act on facts which is one of the programs identified by the Arizona Department of Education um that may be utilized by school districts. However, Gilbert Public Schools began including formal staff training with the SOS program uh when it was initiated back in the 20112 2012. Again, all of our thoughts and prayers go out to the Flores family. And again, we are here with whatever you may need. And then sadly on Sunday, Andrea Young, sixth grade teacher at Town Meadows, passed away after a hard-fought battle battle with cancer.
Only Charles Kamisky, who owned the White Socks, and Jake Roupert, who owned the Yankees, uh, who each, by the way, had their own reasons for disliking Johnson. Well, they were the only teams with which Harry Fris could make a deal. Jake Roupert who was in the brewery business and that was about to be extinguished in 1920 thanks to prohibition. He really wanted to improve his baseball investment a team that to that point had yet to win a pennant. So on December 18th Rert got Duffy Lewis, Ernie Shore, and Dutch Leonard from Fris in exchange for cash and some minor leaguers. So on paper, the Socks still looked pretty good for 1919. And much of Boston's press corps and the team's fans agreed. But as the great Charlie Finley once said, they may have looked good on paper, but they stunk on grass. The 1918 19 season, excuse me, was a disaster.
And big malls weren't the only result of growth. All over the region, entrepreneurs would open beauty parlors, restaurants, motel, furniture stores, movie houses, and lots of other small businesses in strip malls that dotted the landscape. Here in Wakefield, one visionary attempted to create New England's own version of Disneyland with the construction of the $4 million Pleasure Island Amusement Park located right off of Route 128. It was the first of several attempts to imitate the successful Disneyland in California by using a theme park concept and it opened in 1959. But financial problems and a little thing called winter dog the park from the very beginning and by 1969 it had closed and the property is now well what is it? It's an industrial park of course. Meanwhile, citizens in towns like Burlington saw development along the road as, and this is a quote from a local official, a gold mine.
We tried to do the lowhanging fruit and get as many done in the time constraints that were possible. Again, this is a lot of work effort on um district staff. So, this is in addition to Okay, thank you Daniel. Yeah, I had a question about the teacher compression item. Um, and I think it's mostly just cuz I don't have like what is planned in front of me, but we were considering a 10% longevity raise primarily to address compression across the board, but a 10% like 10% sounds like a lot, but that would be like a $200 bump for some employees or like a $400 bump for some employees. It's not very significant. Can I just say it's number three on our sheet? How um how significant would you say the impact of the $171,000 on like teacher salaries would be for those experiencing compression? So for the the staff that's experiencing actual compression where let's say they're sitting on a B schedule and they've been in the district 9 or 10 years, that's a significant compression for that particular staff member.
Mrs. Young taught at Town Meadows from 2003 through this current school year. Andrea taught kindergarten, multi-age, second, and third grade, second, fourth, and sixth grade, and significantly and positively impacted hundreds of students. She was an incredible and devoted mom of two daughters, Riley, a Highland High School grad, and Payton, a Highland High senior. Andrea was a fantastic wife, sister, friend, aunt, and educator. Andrew was passionate about decorating and help and helped redesign the lounge in the workroom at Town Meadows. She was also an incredible floral designer, decorating for multiple events around the valley. Her compassion for children and people in general is a legacy she definitely leaves behind. She'll be dearly missed. I ask you to keep Andrea's family, friends, students, and community of Town Meadows in your thoughts and prayers. And lastly, over the past couple of weeks, we've been uh alerted to guns being on campuses of Highland High and Mosquite High.
Even with Ruth, who overcame an early season slump to smash the record for home runs with 29. Now, before the 1919 season, Ruth got a three-year deal worth $30,000. When the season ended, Ruth looked around and he saw the salaries of other stars like Tai Cobb and Eddie Collins were actually higher than his, and he demanded a raise. Why not? The guy just hit 29 home runs. But for Z, who was busy battling Johnson in court and trying to hang on to his club, this was the last straw. And so Stout and Johnson say the sale of Babe Ruth, which included cash and Jake Roert holding notes on Fenway. Think about that. The owner of the Yankees is going to hold promisory notes on Fenway Park. Look, Ruth wasn't happy in Boston. He was making it difficult for the rest of the team and Rbert was more than willing to take him off of Fris's hands.
And they altered their zoning laws to encourage commercial, business, and retail developments, which just a few years ago accounted for 60% of Burlington's town tax income. That's money that Burlington was happy to take for schools, safety services, and other necessities. And for decades, it seemed like everybody was jumping on the Route 128 bandwagon. Well, not everybody. In the late 1940s, the people of Lexington were almost unified in their support for the proposed new circumferential highway. They were getting tired of people jamming that center of their town every damn day, worse on the weekends and holidays with the old ad hoc 128. So just like every other town along the highway, Lexington's population increased dramatically after the highway was open. In 1959, just eight years after the opening of the new Route 128, when presented with the opportunity to site a filings department store at the intersection of Routes 2 and 128, the town voted down the project.
Um so those staff members are getting would through this process get anywhere from like you know $1,200 3,000 $4,000 bump um for a lot moving from the A to the B. That's about 900 on average, 900 to a thousand dollar bump. So that's going to address um the new year teachers moving. Um and then like I said, your 10 11 12 year teachers um they could have some substantial uh increases. So I do have I mean it was very preliminary. I'd like to clean it up a little bit and then I can send that out to the group today. So to clarify, the teacher compression item is just is primarily recognizing the years of service of all currently employed teachers. Yes. Yes. Okay. And to like I wouldn't that also create an issue in future in the future where because we have a placement schedule in a couple of years we'll be back in like sort of the same place where like people will still be stuck at their years of service from whenever this happened.
Through anonymous tips from students, we were able to locate the guns that were in the possession of students. Thank you to those students who were mindful enough to alert administration. This is extremely concerning. Fortunately, we are in the process of procuring weapon detectors for each of our high schools. And in uh November 2024, we updated our uh community that we were considering adding weapons detectors at our high schools. Following that update, we began researching and procuring a detector solution that would deliver the best results for our community. That process culminated in March 2025 when our governing board approved the implementation of weapon detectors at all seven of our high schools here in GPS. We've been working with Mesa Public Schools, which has already implemented detectors on our high school campuses, and our vendor to learn about implementation best best practices to ensure ours runs as smoothly as possible with our students and families well informed and any potential disruption to students and visitors minimized.