While the School Board did more listening than talking last evening at the Capital Projects work study session in the Garden Room at the Vets Auditorium, surrendering its center stage role to construction and bond experts, Board member Karlo Silbiger summarized the feelings of many:
“I thought the workshop was a huge success. Dozens of community members turned out to learn about our facilities needs and potential funding sources for future work. Everyone got his questions answered. We all left more informed than when we came. But this only is the first step.
“Now the Board will have to work responsibly, but quickly, to sort through the various options to be ready to proceed with a parcel tax, a bond, or both in the near future.
“ I suggested last night that the School Board divide itself into three working groups (subcommittees): one to address a master facilities plan, one to address election and financing issues, and one to address community outreach. That will allow us to work more quickly.”
Supt. Dave LaRose labeled the two hours “a just-the-facts evening,” and no one appeared to disagree, a time for dispensing purely putatively objective information. “This is not an occasion for persuasion,” Mr. LaRose said. “We are not here to sell.”
Okay, an amount of data was recycled from weeks ago. For the work study session, it was dressed up for presentation in more compact, appealing packaging.
We Report, You Decide
One School District employee said the workshop “was intended to be inconclusive, and it worked out that way. An information-gathering night. This was an exploration exercise to consider what the next step might be.”
In a seeming throwaway line by one of the financial advisors on the pregnant bond measure, he said that a community vote could be held during next April’s City Council election instead of waiting until the less attractive June ballot.
With the construction company Balfour Beatty pegging the cost of upgrades at $165, and talk circulating that a bond measure in the $60 million range may be sought, little change will be left over for the most popular targets for upgrade.
“I am not sure it was made clear,” said a gentlemen in the front row who preferred anonymity,
“that once the health-and-safety and mandated projects are paid for, little money will be left for the glamourous parts we have been talking about.
“After all of those words that were spoken, we are not even talking about how much money we are going to raise through the bonds. It was said that health-and-safety would cost about $50 million. That doesn’t leave much for other improvements from a $60 million bond.
“I guess if we could raise $100 million through bonds, then we would have $50 to do the high-profile parts.”
