Everybody wants new schools, at least for their kids. I always use the sliced bread analogy. Who doesn't appreciate the convience. The thing is convience comes with a price tag.
Well the school committee voted to ask the city council to approve a STATEMENT OF INTEREST (SOI) letter to the MSBA for the construction of a new PICKERING. No one would argue it is in desperate need of replacement unless of course you are the MSBA who took it off their prioority list just after the MARSHALL bond was approved. Guess the school had some kind of healing.
Oh the politicans have been back. Tours have been taken. I heard everyone agreed that it's bad, I just don't recall anyone saying it's WORSE enough to get that magic 80% that is really less than that actually.
EVEN IF ...
the MSBA agreed that its replacement was a priority does anyone want to think about passing another 100 MILLION DOLLAR bond, right now? Could they really keep a straight face when they promise you your taxes won't rise?
Mind you we are already facing fiscal ARMEGEDDON. We got to hope we can trick the other 350 plus school districts that they need to pay more in taxex just so they can let us slide on our own NET SCHOOL SPENDING. How many other URBAN districts have the same problem?
I just think instead of cancelling meetings and wasting time on pipe dreams we need to face facts and get to work.
Why doesn't the city use the other 20%...really 45% =/- (which does not i.e. fees & uneligible items of construction in the 80%)... to fix & modernize the school and use local tradesman for the job. Lets see how those apples look.
ReplyDeleteGood point!
DeleteLet me get this straight. This city was short $15M in its required spending on the schools, it just bonded $92M for a new Marshall, it now plans on pursuing another probably $90M plus bond in the future for a new Pickering, and all with the promise that taxes will not increase? Do the taxpayers in this city really believe that? Where do they think all this money to pay these debts and penalties will come from? I hope the taxpayers in this city are more intelligent than that.
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