Mixed messages, part 3

As I wrote in part 2, I came away from our October work session with the impression that the district could choose to drop projects from the bond proposal even after the voters approved it. That message was reinforced in January, as the board discussed the future of TREC (the former Roosevelt Elementary School). The administration raised the possibility that we would include renovations to TREC in the bond proposal, but while putting them far enough out on the timeline that we might be able to choose to dispose of the property altogether, rather than do the projects. From the discussion:

Director Roesler: If we put this project in the bond language and then don’t do it, is that not a problem?

Superintendent Murley: Yeah, not doing it is not a problem. So, like I say, we put it in there because we would hate to get the point and not be able to do the renovations on it, but ideally we would get to that point and not need to.

(Full recording here.)

So again, it sounded like we could drop projects altogether, regardless of whether it was foreseeable at the outset that we might not want to do the project. The superintendent reiterated that idea later in the same meeting.

(Ultimately the board decided not to include the TREC renovations in the bond proposal; they now appear in the list of “future needs” with no current funding source.)

Continued in part 4.