[Vision2020] School Levy (was Adolescent Humor)

[Joan Opyr]

I wrote that on this Sunday's show "Brother Carl and I will be addressing Dale's nonsense regarding the upcoming school levy "

And Dan asks:

What part is nonsensical?  The disclosure of the full amount (with interest paid)?  You get the same thing when you buy a house or finance a car.

What a surprise: bond payments include both principal and interest.  Who knew?  Thank heavens for Dale Courtney!  It would seem that those worms at "The Money Tree" have lied to us again.   

Listen, Dale is just being inflammatory.  When you search through the "Parade of Homes" and read that a house on Mabelle is going for $182,000, is that the figure you present to the bank or do you amortize over 30 years to make the price look unreasonable, hoping that the bank will take one look and refuse to lend you the money?  This, I'm afraid, is Dale's trick  And it's a clever trick, isn't it?  $45 million sounds awful; it sounds too painfully high.  All that for two renovations and one new high school?  Good grief.  But the facilities bond is, as claimed, a $29 million dollar bond.  The voters haven't been deceived; they haven't been lied to.  $29 million is the amount that will be spent on school construction and renovation; that's what we'll spend on bricks and sticks.  The rest will be paid in interest on the debt.  Now, is anyone out there stunned by this information?  Is anyone experiencing shock and awe?  Dale's "real cost" analysis should be news to no one -- no one who has ever borrowed money at interest.  Despite the Bible's prohibitions against usury, I'm afraid it's done nothing but flourish.       

Dale's $45 million figure is neither the beginning nor the end of his disingenuous, anti-public education hooey.  Dale's vast and drafty assortment of charts and graphs (not to mention his manufactured concern about the University of Idaho lay-offs) are a very thin mask for the fact that members of the Wilson-Jones church oppose ALL funding for public education.  It wouldn't matter what the Moscow School Board asked for -- $29 million for a new high school and two substantial renovations or 29 cents for mud and toothpicks --  Doug/Dale would oppose the levy.  I think we can dispose of their arguments (such as they are) fairly quickly and move on to more genuine concerns.

The most important, I think, is the "urban sprawl" argument.  I like and respect Bill London, but I strongly disagree with him on this issue.  I don't see building a new high school on the Trail property as in any way contributing to and/or creating urban sprawl.  Moscow has been growing to the North and East for some time now, and it is a simple matter of economics that in order to prosper, we must continue to grow.  Even with a new school on the edge of town, it will still be possible to park onself in the middle of Moscow, drive in any direction for five minutes, and wind up smack dab in a wheatfield.  The Palouse is not the Treasure Valley, and it never will be.  Our location is just too damned inconvenient.  It seems to me that a greater danger to our town is that we will become simply a bedroom community for WSU.  If the state legislature continues to dismantle the U of I, what will replace the college as Moscow's primary engine of growth?  What will attract new businesses to Moscow?  What would make us an appealing location for, say, a firm like Schweitzer?   

Oh dear.  Best put the cork back in the bottle for now.  It's late; I'm freshly back from lovely Missoula (a college town from whom Moscow could learn a lesson or two); and I ought to be saving my school levy rants for Sunday's show.  I need to catch up on my Mortal Kombat/Beauty Sleep so I'll feel fresh and invigorated when I open up this week's can of whoop ass

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com

PS: Janice, I realize that your home borders the Trail property, and I understand why you wouldn't want to live next door to a big high school.  Neither would I.  I like living out in the middle of nowhere, and I like my privacy.  This is an argument I think you could fruitfully expand upon and one that would appeal to many on this list.  When I say that Carl and I will be hanging up on anti-levy callers, I certainly don't mean to dismiss people like you whose property/homes will be directly affected.  I mean to dismiss Doug and Dale who, once again, are the Friday farts at a Saturday market.    Get more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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