Lakeview to decide on bond

COLUMBUS - The Lakeview Improving Future Education (LIFE) and Parents for Responsible Education committees have been rallying voters to make an informed decision at the polls Tuesday, and both proponents and opponents claim the other is focusing on their own set of facts.

The district will vote Tuesday on a bond issue in an amount not to exceed $2,995,000, which would finance an eight-room expansion of the Lakeview High School building and add a multi-purpose gymnasium as part of incorporating a junior high. The total cost of the project is $3,689,500 with $689,500 coming from the building fund reserve.

Dan Pabian and Dan Lutjens, district patrons and members of the Parents for Responsible Education opposition committee, said proponents are using selective information to try to advance the issue and many details and other problems facing the district associated with the project are not being directly addressed.

Lutjens said the situation surrounding Sunrise Elementary School and its possible relocation, because of Archer Daniels Midland Co. consideration to expand, has been placed on the back burner.

Plans to address issues, such as transporting students and arrangement of staff to minimize cost, he said, have yet to be presented despite repeated requests for answers.

“They can paint a rosy picture with what they offer, but will it happen?” Lutjens said.

Jim Schaben, a co-chairman of the LIFE committee, said answers to those valid concerns will be provided, but may only be immediately necessary to address if the bond is approved, and patrons must have some trust in the district staff and school board to resolve such issues at the appropriate time.

“The board made a motion to put the bond election in front of the people and trusted people to make informed decisions,” Schaben said. “There has to be some element of trust in the people we have elected to have the best interest of all the patrons in the district.”

Michelle Bentz, a member of the LIFE committee, said an enhanced education and expanded curriculum should be the number one priority.

“I think overall, educationally, this is a better opportunity for the students,” Bentz said.

She said the expansion of the high school and moving the seventh and eighth graders to a central location would help provide for an expanded junior high curriculum, including fine arts, physical education, co-curricular activities, classes for gifted students and career oriented classes. It would also provide better science and biology classrooms and additional math electives, which might include calculus, for the senior high.

The benefits “outweigh any inconveniences we as parents might have to suffer through,” Bentz said. Inconveniences might include a few years of parents transporting students to the high school.

Pabian is concerned about the long-term financial viability of the district.

He said he is concerned about the additional operating expenses associated with the additions as well as the need for Lakeview High School to install a sprinkler system within the next eight years at a cost of $400,000 to $500,000. Also, the district may need to fund other improvements, such as installing a new track for an estimated $200,000 and possibly constructing a new building for relocating Sunrise.

Schools are being forced to consolidate “because they can't afford to stay open. I don't want us to overspend ourselves,” Pabian said.

According to Superintendent Paul Calvert, the district budgets approximately $250,000 annually for the building fund.

Schaben said additional operating expenses may occur whether the bond passes or not, because if the issue fails additions may be needed at the elementary school sites to handle overcrowding. If expansion or improvements are needed in the district a time delay may increase the expense to the district, he said.

Lutjens says that LIFE states if the bond is approved it will only moderately increase the current levy.

“They are playing with numbers,” he said, because if the bond fails, taxes will go down.

The district is currently levying 2.5 cents per $100 for old bonds, but there is enough money in the bond repayment fund to make the remaining payments. Based on the 2006 valuation, the levy for the new bond would require an estimated 3.9 cents, so the net increase would be 1.4 cents, or $14 per year per $100,000 valuation.

Bentz said it is a small price to pay and enhancing education for the successful futures of the students should hold a much higher value.

Lutjens also said providing an expanded curriculum may be great for students who excel, but average and below average students may be negatively affected.

“For the top 10 percent it might benefit them,” he said, but for the rest, they may lose out.

Under the current arrangement, a teacher becomes familiar with 20 students, but if the seventh and eighth grades are brought together at the high school, the teacher must then become familiar with 120 students, possibly creating a lack of individualized attention, he said. It may also create additional discipline problems by incorporating a junior high.

Schaben acknowledges the concerns, but says resolutions for all questions and concerns cannot be provided at the present time.

“There are questions that haven't been 100 percent answered,” he said, but “in any project any of us has ever undertaken has every question been answered before moving forward? No, it's impossible ... but issues are being addressed.”

He said misinformation is being disseminated about questions that have already been answered, such as the closure of Platte Center Elementary school if the bond passes and whether Siemens Building Technologies had a lock on the building contract. The Platte Center school will only close if the school board deems it no longer financially viable, Schaben said, and other contractors will have the opportunity to bid on the project.

Another claim is that the Lakeview Community Schools Advisory Council to the school board has not expressed support for moving ahead with this project, Schaben said.

Bob Arp, principal of Lakeview High School, was in attendance at the November 2004 meeting, and said the council did support the measure.

According to the minutes of that meeting, discussion was held by the members and the “consensus of the group is to recommend a focus on the seventh and eighth grade move to the Lakeview site within three years and long range planning for development of a K-12 site within eight-10 years.”

Schaben said he thinks the patrons will find answers for themselves and “I believe the people of the Lakeview district will support this bond election.”