The School Board Race--- Key points ---The Analysis

As you approach the Evansville High School notice---- the cornerstone----with the large numbers---2002. It has been five years. Five Years since the three schools were built and rebuilt to meet the student needs.

Five years later--------we have proposals to build one .....and possibly two new schools. These proposals are contained in the Plunkett Raysich study--. They are internally generated options. Not one has been the result of community input.

It is time for the options to BEGIN-----the options the community would desire. The time for the School Board to LISTEN has begun. The community will have it's say on Monday, March 12, 2007 at the March Evansville School Board meeting, 5:30PM at the High School LMC. It is a must meeting.

The most stunning section of the Plunkett Raysich presentation is the very first section where PRA moves to "redefine building capacity." In a magical flash of the hand with scarfs, they say the "capacity" is 1874 students. It was 2100 students in 2002.....presto....now it is 1874. One can just see the rabbit in the hat come out. Such smooth magical tricks ------our public can deal with skillfully----we have seen this before.


The debt payments for the bonds for the new school were "back loaded"----which means that each year they get higher. They ASSUMED that each year more and more housing and industrial and commercial investment would minimize the impact to the taxpayer. Forgotten or minimized was the fact that this development, if all residential of lower cost homes, would add to the space crunch. Forgotten or minimized was the additonal fact that the city would need more commerical investment in non-TIF districts, and had minimul prospects. In summary: To assume that one could make it to the end of the bond period was......just wishful thinking. To make the matters worse....was the "backloaded feature."

On backloading: Backloading would be like you buying a car, a new 2007 car for $100 a month and then each year as the car aged, you would add $100 a month to the payment....assuming that you would be making more salary. After all. You were young. You were optimistic. As Tom Petty sings it, "The Future was wide Open. "

It is true that there has been commercial investment in the past two years in Evansville. It is also true that the biodiesel plant and the other possible crushing plant will provide---someday--help for our schools----but that day will be 20+ years from today. As Supr. Carvin said at the TIF #6 meeting at City Hall---The TIF #6 looks fine. It will be great in 20 years. We need to see that day." The tax formulas will allow other taxpayers to be taxed more--such as YOU----but the taxes from these commercial ventures will be used to repay the TIF investments made.

There are only two human emotions present when things do not work out as far as the numbers---those emotions are "blame" and "resentment". In order to be effective in planning, one has to get beyond these two emotions. We will never be able to do so if the planning process is not an open, honest and engaging process. PRA has shown that it cannot deliver this planning process to Evansville.

We as a community can gather together and review. Review what must be done to balance our assets---our space for instruction-----and our debt paying capacity---how much we can pay for schools over the next 15 years.

I have engaged our community in debate and discussion on other issues. I now believe that unless we engage the community and review fully and openly we will be unable to be successful in solving it. Top Down decision making will fail. This was the case in the final years when Dr. Benzinger was superintendent. At that time, it appears to me that faith and credibility had been lost in our school administation, and it was time for a change. No proposal would have been acceptable to our community.

The question is not whether you love kids. Or whether you love our schools. The question is which potential school board candidates you believe has the skill to work with our community to find the best affordable solutions for right now that will be sustainable.

The time to get involved is now. Plan on attending the March 12th Evansville School Board meeting.


.