Tuesday, August 26, 2008

2nd Take At A Referendum

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online.  It’s called “2nd Take At A Referendum.”  It’s about West Bend’s school referenda for this year. 

Unfortunately for me, it is instantly inaccurate because I said that the board will vote to put the referenda on the ballot in September, when in fact, they did it last night.  On the bright side, I was accurate with what the two questions would be:

Question 1 of the proposed referendum builds a new 650-student Jackson Elementary School on a new site, remodels Silverbrook Middle School to hold 900 students and addresses energy inefficiencies, remodels Decorah Elementary to hold 650 students and fixes its cracked wing, and creates secure entrances at the high schools, McLane, Green Tree and Fair Park. It costs $41.5 million.

   Question 2 remodels Badger Middle School to hold 900 students and makes it disabled accessible. It costs $27.4 million.

   Brian Brewer of Robert W. Baird provided interest rate projections of 5 percent he called “conservative.”

   Passing Question 1’s $41.45 million carries interest of more than $24 million over 20 years. Question 2’s $27.4 million carries interest of nearly $16 million for the same period. If both questions pass, the projected total cost of the projects would be nearly $108 million.

I’m opposed to the first referendum for the reasons stated in my column.  I’m still thinking about the second referendum.

(2) Comments
Posted by Owen at 0714 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. For whatever reason - school boards are not happy unless they are building buildings. I think we cn look at the debacle at MPS where they spent $100 million and the schools are sitting half empty.

    There’s only one answer for every school building referendum - NO.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on August 26, 2008 at 1146 hrs


  2. What about this sneaky trick?

    Getting everyone to sympathize with Ref. Question #1 because, hey, we NEED this maintenance done on the elementary and middle schools.  (Guess what, everyone?  If you vote YES, you pay for a new school in Jackson, too!)  No CHOICE there.  I believe that should be a THIRD AND SEPARATE referendum choice.

    Posted by GMazy on August 26, 2008 at 1306 hrs


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.