The Mt. Lebanon School Board primary election is tomorrow -- Tuesday, May 19 (of course, the election features balloting for all kinds of other things and races) -- and Blog-Lebo endorses: No one. That's not our purpose, and I'm not even sure that Joe and I would agree on who we support. (We haven't talked about it!) There are lots of people of good will running for the Board. Please get out tomorrow and vote for some of them!
But the School Board election proceeds in tandem with the high school renovation project, and in the latter case there is much less good news to report.
On the one hand, the architects have been hard at work. The architects presented their latest proposal on Monday, May 11. This version differs substantially from the "Option B" that the Board decided to go forward with earlier this Spring. "Building B" (the "old" high school building, which faces Cochran Road) is back in the mix as part of the educational program, and there is a new "bridge of sighs" that would cross Horsman Drive and connect the (new!) educational buildings and (new!) athletic facilities.
On the other hand, it is difficult to know what to praise and what to criticize with this plan. The renovation project has become a perpetually moving target. As Board member James Fraasch has pointed out, construction costs for this version are still inexplicably high. The Board and the architects are still working to bring down the overall costs. And the design is still subject to substantial tweaks. The swimming community, for example, is gearing up to argue that the swimming pool is undersized for competitive swimming. Do we really need a bridge between the academic buildings and the athletic buildings? How about closing that stretch of Horsman Drive and making the entire area a walkable plaza?
The May 11 presentation is available at the High School Renovation website. (If you want to go directly to the schematic design, here it is.)
As that site notes, "The School Board will hold a Special meeting to continue discussion of the project on June 1st, 2009 at 7:30 pm in the High School Library."
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Monday, May 18, 2009
2 comments:
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The May 11 architect presentation was dumb. Celli and friends could have stayed home and e-mailed the PowerPoint presentation for all they added to the pictures. Celli and friends left the School Board with insufficient information to meaningfully discuss the project. I think the Board has more questions after the presentation than before.
ReplyDeleteCelli and friends did not have answers or even possibilities for the most obvious questions. For example: Where will the tennis courts be located after we build the athletic building? You could see that question coming from a billion miles away, but no answer.
The design has some cool ideas - like the retooling of the South Gym into a student commons and cafeteria.
However, what I wanted out of the Celli and friends was an explanation of how their design better serves the educational experience of our students.
How is it better than the decades old, dysfunctional design that has successfully graduated more than 15,000 students in the last 30 years?
The new design seems no less dysfunctional . Every class change involves stairs, a long walk or both.
And how did our self-imposed design criteria influence the design? Were we dumb with some of our project requirements?
UNOFFICIAL ELECTION RESULTSThe PG printed incomplete information this morning. The following is pulled from the County election website.
ReplyDeleteVoter TurnoutDemocratic: 23.6%
Republican: 23.2%
Democratic BallotSchool Director MT LEBANON (4 Positions)
*Josephine Posti 1,745
*Mary D. Birks 1,642
*Robert Gardner, Jr. 1,390
*Dale F. Ostergaard 895
Daniel L. Remely 847
Alan R. Silhol 775
Electa Boyle 580
WRITE-IN 9
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 2
John M. Daley 483
WRITE-IN 1
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 4 (1 Position)
*David C. Brumfield 316
Stacey R. Chick 229
WRITE-IN 3
Republican BallotSchool Director MT LEBANON (4 positions)
*Dale F. Ostergaard 1,432
*Daniel L. Remely 1,296
*Alan R. Silhol 1,282
*Mary D. Birks 997
Electa Boyle 959
Josephine Posti 794
Robert Gardner, Jr. 587
WRITE-IN 10
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 2
Matthew J. Kluck 365
WRITE-IN 5
Commissioner MT LEBANON WARD 4 (1 Position)
*Dale K. Cowher 316
Daniel Rieg 176
WRITE-IN 4