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March 12, 2008 Letters to the Editor To the Editor: Here's my two cents. I am opposed to building a new school. If they did, I would probably move. I am 100% in favor of fixing the EVHS roof and elementary furnace. I do not support a 10 million dollar renovation. It could be done for much less with a frugal and intelligent plan of action. Technically, we do not even have to make it handicap accessible at this point and a recession seems a bad time to go into any debt. An elevator isn't that expensive. My brother sells them in New Jersey. I asked last year and he said one on the outside costs about $50,000 and one on the inside, which is harder to do, costs about $75,000 on a two story building. So, $10 million seems awful high. Why would anyone want to gut the high school? The high school is a beautiful and artistic architectural jewel. Any talk of destroying it is criminal. It is one of the points that makes it so difficult to follow this issue. Sincerely, Diane Wood Parent and Taxpayer To the Editor: If I have my information correct, the school board just recently narrowed their decision on what to do with our school buildings. The two choices are to build a new 7-12 high school building in Eagle Bend and remodel Clarissa or remodel and enhance both existing buildings. I think there needs to be another choice here if you plan on selling this to the taxpayers of the district. Board members, please don't take this as a personal attack because I realize that a lot of work has gone into your decision. What happened to taking one building and enhancing that building to meet the needs of all our students K-12? I know there are emotional attachments to each building and no one wants to have a school leave their town, but how much money do we save by operating one building compared to both? Was that question even answered? I would love to see a new school for our district because I realize the benefits in the long term, but the reality of it is that the taxpayers would vote this down. Remodeling both or mostly one building leaves us with a costly bill that the taxpayer still has to okay. Now here's where I stick my neck out with my opinion. Take the newest building and remodel, add on or do what is necessary to meet the students' and teachers' needs. Now I know what you're thinking. The Clarissa boy is only looking out for his town. Not true. If the building in Clarissa was in Eagle Bend, I would feel the same way. The reason I feel this way is that I know this course of action has a chance to get a yes vote from the taxpayer. Maybe I'm wrong about a new school getting a shot at passing, but the preliminary figures I saw for the taxpayers tells me otherwise. I also know that I'm on the outside looking in and maybe the things I've talked about have already been considered. Maybe Mr. Twitchell can answer that question best. He is our superintendent and we look to him for logical guidance. Do we have cost figures on operating just one building? I've given my opinion and I urge others to do the same. Maybe our school board should revisit their choices and give us one where the pill is easier to swallow. Mark Johnson Clarissa To the Editor: As non-school age parent taxpayers in the Eagle Valley School District, we have been reading with interest the information regarding the school building issue. It seems to us that the real issue is the declining student population in our school and neighboring districts, not whether our buildings are new enough or not, or where they are located. Most of our communities have a large percentage of elderly citizens, mainly in part to the lack of industry and commerce to keep our young adults here in the northern half of Todd County. If we can keep our young adults here, they will raise their families here and once again all of our school halls would be filled with their children, increasing school enrollment numbers. New buildings will not hold families here if there are no employment opportunities for the parents. Maybe as concerned citizens we should work together with our towns and county to make them more attractive for businesses to locate in our communities. We feel that until this is done, student populations will continue to decline, making it harder for any existing schools to obtain their full future potential growth. This letter is written only as "food for thought" with no intention to offend anyone on either side of this issue. Sincerely, Kim and Mike Ahrens Eagle Bend |