WORCESTER, Mass. - Mayor Joseph Petty released a public statement on Wednesday about a lawsuit involving construction of a new Doherty Memorial high school. 

The lawsuit challenges the project infringes on a public park and says Doherty High should have never been built there in the first place. 

Mayor Petty says the lawsuit contests a 1961 Supreme Judicial Court decree allowing 20 acres of former Newton Hill Park  to be used for school purposes.

Here his Mayor Petty's statement in full: 

“The City of Worcester has received notice of a lawsuit filed by 13 taxpayers that challenges the construction of a new Doherty Memorial High School on a portion of the 20-acre parcel of land where the high school is currently located. In essence, the lawsuit contests a 1961 decree by the Supreme Judicial Court allowing those 20 acres of former Newton Hill park land to be used for school purposes. The new Doherty High School will be built on those same 20 acres. The Worcester City Council and the Worcester School Committee are confident in the City’s position and will not be intimidated by the lawsuit. Work on the project will continue uninterrupted. Both the City Council and the School Committee are committed to the timely delivery of a new state-of-the-art high school that the community, and the Doherty students, desire and deserve.”