posted by Joe Polk at 3:24 PM /
A group of Mt. Lebanon residents last night asked the school board to consider building a completely new high school, a move that would require the community to approve a referendum on the matter.
Group members, who said their organization is called Build Our School Now, asked the board to vote for building a completely new high school rather than renovating the current structure and to put the issue to a referendum, which would be required under state law.
State formulas for debt limits hold Mt. Lebanon to spending no more than $110 million on the high school project without getting a referendum approved by the community. A new high school would cost about $150 million.
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/09041/948123-100.stm
Group members, who said their organization is called Build Our School Now, asked the board to vote for building a completely new high school rather than renovating the current structure and to put the issue to a referendum, which would be required under state law.
State formulas for debt limits hold Mt. Lebanon to spending no more than $110 million on the high school project without getting a referendum approved by the community. A new high school would cost about $150 million.
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/09041/948123-100.stm
Labels: high school renovation, school district
3 Comments:
Someone please help me out . . . I will preface this by saying I have not developed a formal, concrete opinion about the HS project and I am not a part of any special interest group. For the record, I have 3 school aged kids, some of whom may be horribly inconvenienced by a HS construction project and some of whom may benefit from its end result. I also have my fears as to whether this is the best use of such significant dollars. As a result, I'm squarely on the fence.
Unfortunately, the responsibilities of my daily life in a cratering world economy have also prevented me from studying the HS proposals in any great detail. As such, I am left to try and develop my opinions from what is written in the papers. Unfortunately again, the P-G generally stops way short of asking the questions that I (and presumbaly everyone else) want answered. So, if someone was in attendance - or is otherwise in the know - can you please help me out with a few questions:
1. If both proposals under consideration would exceed the debt threshold, thus requiring a referendum, how do you vote for one or the other and NOT vote for a community-wide referendum? What would be the point of that?
2. It seems likely that a referendum would fail. Sorry, that's just my gut. In light of that reality, why not give more attention to a proposal that comes in under the debt threshold?
3. When taking into consideration the tax increase that is surely coming without any construction, what is the long term tax impact (to John Q. Public) of taking on a record level of debt?
4. I know we can't lay this at the feet of the current board, but has anyone discussed how/why the HS has been allowed to decay to such a state in the first place? We all regularly use office buildings, churches and other structures that are as old as the HS or older. Many of us attended college where the buildings were decades older than this HS. However, those buildings are not suffering from the same problems as this one and no one is asking that they be torn down. Was someone asleep at the switch as far as capital improvements etc were concerned?
Thanks for your collective wisdom.
Dave, I have four kids of which the oldest will be entering the HS this fall. For the next nine years I'll have kids in the facility. I'll preface by saying I don't know what the answer is and I'm not real happy about the position we find ourselves in but I'll try to answer your questions.
1. Both proposals would require referendum, Remley and Silhol proposed an additional option using the architects and contractors price/sq.ft. estimates. This proposal would include renovation and new construction and would be the under $110 million referendum point. One of the board members scoffed at the idea saying that they were trying to derail the current proposals.
2. I agree that a referendum would fail.
3. Impact on John Q. Public; The wealthy would be able to swallow it, the family struggling to get by will have to sacrifice and make some difficult decisions, seniors on a fixed income may be forced out of their homes, the tenants in homes, apartments and duplexes would face higher monthly rental fees, some I suspect may not be able to afford it.
4. Why has the HS been allowed to decay to such a state in the first place? This is what upsets me the most. Back in my younger days I knew a kid who would take his perfectly good bicycle to the top of a very steep hill, push the bike down the hill so that it would crash into a brick wall at the bottom of the slope. When I asked him why he was doing that he replied, "if I wreck this one my parents will buy me a new one". It is my perception that the HS facility was at the top of that hill thirty years ago in perfectly good shape but has been allowed to roll down that slope. The grade was not that steep at first and the condition slowly rolled down hill for the first 15 to 20 years but in the past 5 years that slope has increased to a vertical drop. The deterioration of the facility has rapidly accelerated and here we find ourselves making impact with that brick wall. We have intentionally allowed the facility to deteriorate, while students are trying to get an education and teachers are trying to teach. I hope my perception is wrong and I know much attention and resources were diverted to the elementary and middle school renovations. In hind sight I think it would have made more sense to do the largest project(HS renovation, construction first).
To conclude, again I will state that I don't know what the answer is and I appreciate the efforts of all who have volunteered their time trying to find it. One of my biggest fears is however is that if this community takes on this debt, we will become "house poor". Yes, we will have a new facility but please ask yourself this question. Will we be able to furnish it with the best teachers, equipment and programs?
The answer to Mr. Rogan's question: No.
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