On Saturday my ballot arrived. All that is on the ballot is measure 24-152. It is asking us the voters of the district to authorize a general obligation bond of $19,500,000.
In part I am for it and in part I am against it. The schools in this district are crowded and I do believe that new educational space is needed. But I am not sure about this specific measure.
Before I get to far let’s start with a bit of review.
At one time the Cascaded School District was just the HS and the JR HS. Then the state required consolidation of the district and the various elementary school districts became part of Cascade. The Cascade board and administrators stayed in charge and things did not necessarily go for the best.
For example, Aumsville Elementary had a large amount of cash on hand, they also had a levy or something that had been passed by the voters to ensure EVERY student could ride the bus to school, rather than walk down Aumsville HWY to the school. After the consolidation no one knows what happened with Aumsville’s funds they were absorbed into Cascade and repairs and maintenance at Aumsville were not always done. Children living within a mile of the school had to start walking to school, yet the property owners still payed the tax that was passed to ensure each child had a bus to ride…
I believe it was in 1996 that the district proposed a BRAND NEW HS. It failed. In part as they wanted a lot of “extra.” Such as TWO, yes TWO gyms. After that they tried several times to pass one that was just adding new facilities to the HS and some other additions. But they always wanted “extra.” As the years have gone by they have slowly adjusted it to include construction at two of the Elementary schools.
This past spring they sought 19,500,00 to build: A new Elementary School to house 2 grades in Aumsville, additions to Turner, additions to the HS including 10 classrooms, another gym, another weight room, another wrestling room, an auditorium, new athletic fields, a new stadium… and some repair and maintenance to the various buildings.
This is the first time it received more YES than NO votes. But there is a catch. As it is not a major election, it had to have 50% or more of the voters show up to vote. It didn’t. It won by a hundred and some votes, BUT failed to reach majority by over two hundred votes. Now, I don’t know about you, but I personally would think that probably most if not all those who wanted this thing to pass probably voted as they all knew it needed 50% turnout. Thus if the two hundred or so people that were needed to get majority had voted they probably would have voted NO, and if that had happened the measure would have had a) 50%+ turnout but b)more than 50% No votes. Yet the district still called it a victory, but it wasn’t.
Then in the campaign toward this November vote the have not only touted their loss as a “win” but have also attempted to mislead the voters. In the October Aumsville newsletter there was a page about what this measure would do. The Middle 1/3 of the page had nothing at all about the measure but rather what had been done to the smaller elementary schools in the past 10 from academy bonds and grants and what was still to be done from them. The top 1/3 was about what the bond would do for Aumsville and Turner, and the bottom 1/3 what would be don at the JR&SR HSs. Thus for those not reading in depth the page, it appeared that this bond was going to do a lot more than it does.
The bond is a bit different than the last one, as the last one called for a 4/5 grade elementary school in Aumsville and this one calls for a k-2 elementary school. According to what this district put out last time and what they put out this time around. Though the bond measure’s summer just states an elementary school housing 400-450 students. The current elementary school holds 450, so doubling the capacity.
Personally there are only a few items that I have problems with and they are:
- New Gym at the High School
- New Stadium
- New Athletic Fields
- New weight room
- New wrestling room
- and anything along those lines I’m forgetting.
Why?
Well, they already have many of those facilities and they are not necessities. Also the current stadium was not built by tax dollars but through the booster club. When I was in HS I helped raise the funds to redo the track. I personally believe that if they want a new athletic facilities they should do fund-raising for it, not tax everyone for it.
If the district were to place a measure on the ballot that was just about needed repairs/upgrades to the current facilities, the construction of new classroom/instructional space and none of the “extra” and also showed us how they would maintain the current and new facilities, I would be all for it. I would be even more for it if the top administrators resigned and a bunch of new voices were elected to the board. But as long as these same people keep including extras to the package and keep pushing it and not getting the hint, I am not so much for it. I would have thought that by now they would have realized that people are for the kids, for the additional education space but not for the extra non essential stuff.
(By the way I was sort of for the new HS back in 1996 as my class, the class of 2000 ,would have been one of the first classes if not the first to graduate from it, but that was before I knew all that have sine learned about it and about the district… I was a kid wanting to graduate from a new place)
Peace
— Lyle II