The Garden City Telegram
Email this story | Add Your Comment
| Read (0) Comments
Bond issue could be key in Leoti's future
Published 2/1/2008 in News : Education
By EMILY BEHLMANN
ebehlmann@gctelegram.com
LEOTI -- Though many Wichita County residents seem to agree that USD 467's elementary school needs improvement, some expressions of opposition to a $5 million bond issue leave voters unsure about what will happen in Tuesday's election.
The vote will be the Board of Education's third attempt to pass a bond to replace R.B. Stewart Elementary School, parts of which are 84 years old. The only classroom inspected has been deemed unfit for use, and termites and outdated heating/cooling systems are among problems board members say plague the building.
The latest proposal -- for a five-dome complex designed for low-cost construction and energy efficiency -- is far less expensive than previously failed bonds. Those traditional bricks-and-mortar designs would have cost voters $8 million in 2007 or $11.1 million in 2003.
Yet a full-page Leoti Standard ad from the unidentified group "Concerned Tax Payers of Wichita County," reminds voters that, with interest, the total project costs $8,152,583, to be paid over 20 years. The USD 467 office confirmed the figure's accuracy.
No matter what happens on Tuesday, the situation is getting desperate, according to Superintendent Lee Tarrant.
He said the state architect's office is expecting a call from him Wednesday morning.
If Tarrant calls with news that the bond issue passed, the district simply will proceed with the proposed $5.5 million project, which would be paid for with the bonds, $400,000 in capital outlay funds and $100,000 in interest on the bonds.
But if voters turn down the bond issue, that's a different story.
Tarrant said the state fire marshal would come to Leoti and do an inspection, then outline what the district needs to do to bring the building up to code, and the district would foot the bill.
"At that point, we become reactive," he said. "We do whatever they tell us to do."
Either that, or the district closes the school, Tarrant said.
"I'm just kind of in a position where no matter what happens, there's a way we're going to deal with it," Tarrant said. "If it fails, we turn it over to the state. If it passes, Leoti will have some control over the future."
Others in the community also discussed the role the bond issue plays in Leoti's future.
Dirk Chidester, a 2007 Wichita County High School graduate who has several family members employed by USD 467, is not optimistic about where a rejected bond would lead.
"If it doesn't get voted, this community is going to die," he said Thursday.
Cynthia Brooks-Fetty also is concerned about the future, and the value voters put on education, especially in a global economy where children from other countries are surpassing Americans on international tests.
"If we don't educate our children, we're going to be in a lot of trouble," she said.
She wonders, too, what would happen to the Wichita County community without a successful bond issue.
She said she doesn't have a personal interest in the elementary school because her children live in her hometown of San Diego. But moving from California 13 yeas ago, she said she thinks she has an outsider's perspective.
As rural western Kansas towns lose population, Brooks-Fetty said, she expects school districts eventually will be forced to consolidate. She'd rather not see Leoti be a district that's absorbed into another.
"If we have the best facility, our chances of staying here are greater," she said.
Building a new school, especially the latest reduced-cost model, just makes sense to Doug Johnson, a Leoti resident whose wife teaches at R.B. Stewart Elementary School.
He said the couple is familiar with poor conditions at the elementary school.
"I don't want to throw money into a re-model," Johnson said. "For the money we can spend, I think it's the way to go."
Some other bond issue supporters have expressed mixed opinions about the latest building design.
Marilyn Earl said she was uncertain about the five-dome building at the start, though she didn't mind it so much after listening to a presentation by architect Leland Gray.
Brooks-Fetty, meanwhile, has been behind the board's proposals all the while, regardless of what plans entailed.
"We elected our school board to make these judgments for us," she said. "We should respect their decisions."
Found 0 comment(s)!
Twitter Updates
