How Do You Define Your "Community"? And Not A Single $ Amount. And Other Stuff.

You've probably received this mailing at home.

If you define your "community" as two dozen close neighbors, only one of whom lives farther north than Shannon Road, then I guess the whole "community" designed this boondoggle.

But I don't define a community of nearly 60,000 people that way. I define a "special interest" that way.

And despite the repeated promises of inclusion, the BOE's Lay Facilities Committee was 100% by invitation only. Not one person who applied was appointed. I have the supporting documents. And I was one of those that got turned away.

I might have agreed with the term "citizens", but not "community".

And there's not a single $ figure in the whole puff piece.

So there's no costs associated with:

"Historic sections of each building will be preserved..."
or
"...the high school will have a new competition-quality swimming pool that will be open for community use."
or
"This plan accomplishes all these goals at the lowest possible cost."

Well, what is the comparative cost of renovating vs building new? They don't know.

And that's not just a "competition-quality swimming pool", that's an Olympic sized swimming pool with new locker room facilities, at a cost of $7.5 MILLION. Some local *colleges* don't have that.

And to say this is "at the lowest possible cost", when the cost per student of the CH-UH Master Facilities Plan is 33% higher than nearly every other district in the state is simply false.

Oh, and this bond issue is for $134 MILLION, and there's another loan being taken out for $18 MILLION, both to be repaid by taxpayers, if this thing passes in November.

Then, when they *finally* get around to them - "our teachers and students are doing a great job in spite of these buildings" - a full decade from now, the elementary schools will cost another $80 MILLION.

Vote NO in November, then let's get it right for 2014.