Clapp School Drop-Off Lane to Go, Mayor Emphasizes

Yes, the drop-off lane off Hudson Street at the Clapp School will be removed.

And it will be up to Mayor Scott Galvin and the Recreation Commission, Galvin said Thursday, to determine what goes on Flemming Field, where once sat.

Both Galvin and Recreation Department Director Rory Lindstrom told Woburn Patch they support a field where kids could play ball.

Some south end residents have two concerns about that area:  the drop-off lane is still there and, on the side of the site farthest from Hudson Street, there is not enough room now, they say, for a ball field.

Mayor Scott Galvin told Woburn Patch Thursday that the school drop-off lane “is coming out.”

“It doesn’t serve the city [anymore]," he said.

The lane was built for the additional traffic going into Clapp while students from the Goodyear attended the Hudson Street school during the new Goodyear's construction.

The mayor said the drop-off lane is "not an issue.”

The area across the field from the drop-off lane and adjacent playground must be returned to pre-portables condition, Galvin said.

Some residents said the for younger players.

Galvin said there was no formal ball field there. Lindstrom said she remembers the area being used for ball playing, though not for a while.

The field was open space, green space for active recreation, Lindstrom said. The land has to be returned to what was there before the portables, she said.

With winter coming, a decision on the use of the field will be made in the winter, Lindstrom said, and be implemented in the spring.

“We want to make sure we do things right,” she said.

There’s already been “tremendous progress” at the school and park sites, Galvin said, with the removal of the portables that helped house students from the Goodyear at the Clapp School. They were removed two weeks ago. The new Goodyear Elementary School opened last month.