I am the first to say that I don't have total
recall of things from a few years ago. However. I was on the school board
when the referendum was passed to build the new middle school and the money that
was requested in the referendum was to do any number of things at the middle
school including preparation of fields for use by the district
as a whole and actually by the City and WSU, Cotter, ETC ETC.
At that time there even was a task force of
representatives from the various groups trying to see how we could
cooperate and not duplicate. The idea was to
share facilities and cooperate with the need of our programs and not for each
system to have to duplicate the necessary fields for soccer, football, baseball,
etc etc etc.
One of the things no one could, within a nickel or
a dime, predict was how much some things were going to cost. There were
contingency funds and the like which meant that there could be some money left
over when the basics were done. When those basics related to the building were
completed, then we could go on to use the money left over to do some of the
extra things that needed to be done. Things for which we had land
available or could use land belonging to the Tech college or even buy in the
future that was around the area of the middle school but might take years to do
out of the capital fund budget....
Now some of the school board members seem to feel
that they can't approve Scott Hannon's request to do just exactly what the money
was raised for------ In a word, to continue working on
the grounds around the middle school so that the whole district and the
city and other schools would have access to more accommodations for programs for
kids. That would benefit everyone!
Why is more input needed now when there is a job to
complete!!! If it was a new project totally unrelated to the original
referendum for the new middle school I would understand. BUT IT IS
NOT!! It is simply continuing the work until the project is
complete. If I have overlooked something I apologize however, my
recollection and suggestion is that money by referendum of the people for the
middle school should be spent at the middle school. This is true
especially if the work benefits the entire school district, the City of Winona,
our Universities and other school systems in providing a location for
them to bring in tournaments, sporting events that attract people to Winona and
to local businesses for products and services. It is a WIN WIN
.
Joliene Olson
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