I think it is prudent to bring this up at this time. Since it took five tries to pass this bond issue we cannot forget the reason behind the four failures.
Trust.
We cannot forget that the previous school board forever divided this community and betrayed us with the obvious disparity between North and Central. A lot of trepidation kept voters from approving new schools even when we knew how much they were needed. Part of the reason was not trusting this school board to not repeat the mistakes of the past. The former board was rightly branded as wanting to build a monument to themselves at the sake of the community and since this board, for the most part, only contains different faces and names but still brandishes the same attitude as their predecessors, especially in the board leadership, no trust was endowed on them until such time as it appears we will never catch up in providing adequate facilities for the number of students.
I think that the school board should convene a citizen watchdog committee to participate in overseeing the design and construction of the new schools. This oversight committee should be representative of the demographic and geographic makeup of the district. This committee should be representative of the skill sets that make up design and construction of schools. We have architects, engineers, accountants and the like living in this community and we need to seek out those types to serve. What this committee should NOT be is a group of board or administration or booster club lackeys like those that manned the boundary committee several years ago.
What I am saying is that we need to eliminate the possibilities that got us to where we are with the Taj Mahal complex up north and the subsequent four failed levies. We need to take responsibility to assure that cost overruns are avoided, designs aren?’t changed at the last minute and everything stays on an even keel. We need to eliminate the possibility that this school board can run this project to their liking and rather that the project is run to the taxpayers?’ satisfaction. We need to assure that ?“golden toilet seats?” never make it into the buildings.
Two or three years from now, we can look back and have no one to blame but ourselves if we get three new Taj Mahals built. We can only blame ourselves if the disparity between the new schools and the old schools force parental demands for redistricting so we can get our kids in the ?“right school.?” Since we don?’t trust this school board, we need to try to trust ourselves. The committee should report to the board but no board member should sit on the committee and if they have to, they would have no voting rights. The same goes for the school administration. They should not sit on the committee but if they have to they have no voting rights.
The new schools are being built with hard-earned taxpayer dollars and I believe the taxpayers should take responsibility for assuring we get what we pay for and what we need. No more and certainly no less.
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By Prognosticator
