Found this on the Cleburne Times Review, under letter to the editor, pretty much says it all! G
Not long ago the Cleburne Independent School District proposed a $150 Million school bond which was defeated by the voting public. After this vote, the majority hoped that they would be given a voice when the next bond was being created. The first bond was defeated (1) because it was the largest in Cleburne history and therefore created a tax hike that was considered beyond reasonable, and (2) there was no completed architectural design phase, no blue prints, and open ended and vague wording. In other words, it was impossible to know what specifically was going to be done with the taxpayers’ money.
Welcome to the currently proposed $130 million school bond. If passed, this current bond will be the largest bond ever passed and it will increase your school property tax rate approximately 16 percent. Has a design phase been completed? Have there been blueprints drawn up—specifics as to what will be done? Heck no. In other words, the school administration just told the majority of voters to go suck an egg.
I would like to see the major problems at the high school as pointed out by the Cleburne High School principal addressed. The high school needs a new competition gym, we are told. I don’t think a new competition gym is unreasonable. The problem — the new bond contains not one new gym but two — count them — two new gyms.
The career technology center needs some expansion and modernization — the cost is $38 million. Really? The high school also has a traffic flow problem and some classrooms that need extensive reorganization. I am sure that this would cost $10-$15 million, but who would know since the administration’s plan to solve this problem is to build a new high school.
I believe the majority of voters would vote for a reasonable compromise bond that considered suggestions from the opposing side and that created a bond that addressed the needs of the students and not the wants and wishes of the administration. Do we need two new gyms? Does the foyer to the auditorium need a remodel? Do our athletic fields need to be changed to synthetic turf when there are more injuries on synthetic turf and synthetic turf can be 40 degrees hotter than natural grass? These are very debatable issues that cost very serious money.
It was suggested that an oversite committee, formed of local people familiar with construction, could oversee the implementation of the bond. The voters would then know that they were getting the best bang for their buck and that money was being spent on only the approved projects. This suggestion was dismissed by the administration.
The idea of a paid independent construction manager to watch over the bond was also dismissed. A suggestion to have a cafeteria-style bond, which other districts have used, where voters could choose their projects and not have to vote for the whole enchilada — for instance have the new career technology center project and the new gym and the new high school on the bond and you could choose to vote for all or one or two or none? This suggestion was also dismissed.
By the way, the idea that this bond was formed by a citizens committee is pure poppycock. I was on this committee and can say that Superintendent Kyle Heath told the committee at the very first working meeting that “the priorities have already been decided.” The bond items were already determined by the administration before the committee had its first meeting. Then why were 60 of us asked to attend three hours of meetings each week for nine weeks? If you thought CISD really wanted input from the people, think again. All they really wanted was a committee to rubber stamp what they had already decided before the committee ever assembled.
The point of this is that I believe the voters will pass a reasonably priced bond that fixes the needs of CISD and contains oversite. But, I believe the voters will and should defeat a bloated bond formed by bureaucrats who ignore reasonable suggestions and refuse to compromise with a majority of the voting public.
It’s time, once again, to remind some hard-headed public servants who pays their salary.
Vote no.
David Shelton is a Cleburne resident.
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