[Vision2020] school facilities discussion
Chris Storhok
cstorhok at co.fairbanks.ak.us
Tue Mar 28 15:40:15 PST 2006
You do have a tough fight and I really have no idea how Moscow will arrive
at an affordable solution unless the state legislature changes how school
construction is financed. I do like how Alaska funds school construction,
we have a mix of local bonds, state financing, and local sales tax options;
the pain is spread out evenly.
I have a hunch the best route is incremental:
year 1 propose a bond for a new elementary school to replace West Park;
year 5 propose a bond to demolish and rebuild Russell on the site;
year 10 propose a bond for the new high school.
If this process had started in 1990 after the initial study concluded that
West Park, Russell, and the HS needed replacing you would be done by now but
the district's hopes were then placed on the hope of a speedy resolution to
the lawsuit from hell. Such is life
Chris
-----Original Message-----
From: keely emerinemix [mailto:kjajmix1 at msn.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:57 PM
To: cstorhok at co.fairbanks.ak.us; areaman at moscow.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] school facilities discussion
I would disagree with you on a couple of points, but I really appreciate
that you understand how tough the job is!
keely
From: Chris Storhok <cstorhok at co.fairbanks.ak.us>
To: 'keely emerinemix' <kjajmix1 at msn.com>, areaman at moscow.com,
vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] school facilities discussion
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 12:38:06 -0900
Keely,
Although I am no longer in the area I am so glad to hear that there are
options still on the table. My wife and I concluded a few years back that
the ultimate solution to MSD's building problem(s) would lie somewhere in
the middle.
Russell is a great school building that is in need of upgrades such as an
elevator, new wiring, repairs and the like but all in all the school is
fine. What hurt Russell was the idiotic splitting of the grades schools
into the K-3 West Park and 4-6 Russell alignment that pissed just about
every parent off. Heck, for the sake of students and families restore
Russell back to K-6. Sure the student teacher ratios won't be perfect but
the nightmare of bus transfers and the painful one kid at one school the
other at the other when they should be in the same school routine would come
to a bitter end. Use the M and O budget to buy new text books, one of the
more fascinating examples of MSD's cheapness occurred when my son was given
the same history text book that his aunt and his mother used when they were
in 6th grade at Russell. The book was so old the Vietnam War had yet to
draw to a close and Watergate was a mere footnote at the end.
Back to buildings...from the flood in the 90's it was made apparent that
West Park had to go and since it really was not a "community school" anyway
replacing that structure elsewhere would make the best sense. The
playground can be expanded to the footprint of the building and everyone
would benefit.
The high school is a great building; reality is its drawbacks are limited to
the lack of proximity to the athletic fields, poor parking availability, and
space to expand. The curse of the 90's, a need to wire classrooms to the
internet has drawn to a close with wireless technology.
MSD's solution for school facilities lies within the middle of the tear'em
down crowd and the preserve at all costs crowd; Keely, your task is to
educate the voters of that fact.
Chris Storhok
-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of keely emerinemix
Sent: Tuesday, March 28, 2006 11:57 AM
To: areaman at moscow.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: RE: [Vision2020] school facilities discussion
Gee . . . I haven't given this much thought . . .
Ha, ha. In truth, I've been living and breathing this stuff for the last
three years, two on the committee and one off, and I can tell what I bet
most of you already know: the vocal, survey-answering demographic of Moscow
is polarized. There are those who ONLY want to remodel/renovate current
schools and there are others who don't want to put another dime into
Russell, West Park, and the High School (the HS not being a significantpoint
of discussion in this recent go-around, which saddens me). There's lots of
room in the middle -- a middle ground, good-for-the-community move that was
well represented by last year's bond attempt -- but there seems to be little
interest in moving there. Contact the district office if you want a copy
of the just-completed survey.
Two things in particular bother me. One is that this seems to be perceived
as a fascinating matter of public policy and civic involvement, and not
something that directly affects children. Real children, whether at our
Title 1 (higher percentage of free-and-reduced lunch applications) schools,
our alternative high school, or anywhere else. (A note on the alt school:
I think it is a sad commentary on our community that some of its more
"liberal" voices have advocated for the stripping away of the relocation of
the alt school from any of the three bond proposals the committee has
discussed. Used to be that liberals cared for the underdog, the poor, the
disenfranchised and the marginalized, and if we give up on the needs of our
alternative school students in favor of simply funding "neighborhood
schools," then let's at least recognize that that's a most illiberal and
viciously pragmatic approach not befitting a community like ours). I love
historical buildings, architecture, walkable neighborhoods and "green"
planning, but I will always place the needs of real children before
buildings, affluent neighborhoods, or anything else. And I think we can do
a good job of honoring our children and our taxpayers with well-designed
playfields, trails, schools, creative and mixed-use zoning, green spaces and
other enhancements. We can't, however, pretend that the tangible needs of
education and the needs of schoolchildren have somehow not changed over the
decades and should thus be subsumed to the subjective, intangible interests
of "neighborhoods."
Two, there's an enormous need for the district to educate people on a few
simple facts that some blogmeisters would rather they not know. For
example, we run a tight ship budgetwise, but no amount of cuts from our
maintenance and operations budget will allow us to contribute from that
budget toward significant remodeling and new construction. The State has
allowed for new construction and remodeling to be funded only from bonds --
like it or not, there simply is no legal way to use M and O monies to
remodel or construct, and the December 2005 State Supreme Court decision
calling for a move away from bond monies to fund construction won't change
that. It will allow for other methods of funding large-scale remodels or
new construction, but there is no decision that the legislature can come up
with that allows us now to "tighten" an already conservative budget and use
the "excess" to build or remodel. Plant facilities levies can be used for
some large-scale improvements, but significant remodeling and construction
are fundable only by bonds. Both of those, however, are voter-approved
levies. No matter what any of our anti-public schools neighbors tell you,
there isn't a district anywhere that is able to use regular operations money
to fund new construction, and their vitriol toward public schools can't hide
that fact, only muddy the waters. But if people don't know that, and no one
mounts a large-scale effort to tell them, then the discussion is framed by
those who are counting on the general populace to not know much about school
funding. MSD has taken a lot of hits and not responded at times; I have
taken a lot of hits and have tried only to respond when facts are in
dispute. But if a large segment of the voters think we're reckless in our
budgeting and could just as well suck it in and build from the dollars
saved, our efforts will be fruitless.
I remain astonished that there are those in our community who fail to see a
civic-value difference in the building of a new high school on the edge of
town and the building of a Wal Mart Supercenter on the edge of town. All
growth is not sprawl, and all growth is not the same. God help us if we
can't differentiate between the community-strengthening value of a school
and the community-killing spectre of a Super Wal Mart, but I wonder if
that's where we've ended up. If so, be assured that my work will continue,
and always with the belief that what a community's willingness to provide
the best for its schoolchildren is a far more accurate indicator of its
worth and strength than even the most beautiful and walkable tree-lined
streets bordering run-down, inefficient, and inadequate school buildings.
And now, fully aware that I've probably offended people all over the
spectrum, it's time to open my pesto-cranberry tortollini from the Co-Op and
rue the fact that the MSD board meets tonight at the same time as the NSA
CUP hearing. Sigh.
Contentiously, but kindly,
keely
From: "Area Man" <areaman at moscow.com>
To: <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Subject: [Vision2020] school facilities discussion
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:50:05 -0800
Maybe I've missed it in all the posts about elections and super
wal-marts and various other topics, but I haven't seen much discussion
on the Vizzz regarding school facilities (this time around).
I'll get the ball rolling (love it or hate it) --
Sell off West Park and Russell, build a new elementary school at the
Joseph Street property, send those kids there.
Some things that *might* happen in this process:
- the U of I purchases the West Park property
- *someone* buys the Russell property and builds the high-rise condos
that some citizens told the New Cities people we wanted, maybe even
using the old school for part of that.
- that makes some money for the SD to build the new school with (not all
of it, of course).
Issues?
- Kids that walk to Russell will have to hoof it to McDonald or Lena, or
take a bus (not really a problem with West Park, since I think most all
the kids ride buses there already).
- all the schools even farther over on the east side of Moscow. It
would be nice to have one at each corner of town, but I don't see that
happening.
This still doesn't fix the problems with the High School, but that's for
another time. Baby steps . . .
As Tom Hansen would say, "Thoughts?"
DC
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