School bond vote waits for October

PALMER — In a unanimous vote Wednesday, the school board decided to delay plans to put a raft of bonds to a second vote of the people.

“I do understand that we need this and I do support it, just not at this time,” board member Erick Cordero said at the meeting, expressing a sentiment much of the board seemed to agree with.

The bond proposition, which garnered 6,619 “yes” votes yet failed by 544 votes in last October’s election, would do $31.7 million in repairs to local schools. Before the bonds made it to the ballot, the borough assembly cut $1.95 million that would have installed new running tracks at Wasilla and Colony high schools and a turf football field at Palmer High School. In the current package of bonds those projects have been restored, bringing the bond package total to $33,675,351. The state will pay 70 percent of that, bringing the local contribution down to just more than $10 million, which equates to $11 per year in property taxes for every $100,000 of a home’s assessed value.

While the school board voted unanimously not to put the bonds to a special election in May, most of them seemed open to the prospect of including the bonds in the borough’s regular October election.

Superintendent George Troxel noted that there are some risks to delay. He said projections seem to indicate the cost of the projects will go up $3 million each year because of increased costs of building materials and other expenses. Pushing it to October would skip this year’s construction season.

Pushing it past October, he said, could run the risk of losing the state’s contribution since the 70-30 split is due to expire in November, when it will likely be renegotiated.

He also noted that it may well have been the case that the bonds failed last October because they were on a ballot with a very unpopular borough sales tax ordinance. That ordinance, he said, likely brought out a lot of voters who are opposed to any tax increase. If the bonds were to stand alone in a special election in May, he said, there wouldn’t be any of that spillover.

But in October, he said, “We don’t know what we will be up against.”

And, he said, the repairs are desperately needed. Some of the roofs due for replacement are known to leak every spring when the snow melts. Some of the fire alarm systems, while they work, are so old that it’s nearly impossible to find replacement parts. While the board was making its decision, it also kept an eye on the borough assembly, which had the final say in whether the bonds went to the ballot.

“I have talked with a few of the assembly people and I don’t believe we would have the votes on the assembly to put this on the ballot in May,” said board member Myrl Thompson.

The board also discussed ways to make its case to the people.

Ole Larson complemented district spokeswoman Catherine Esary on a brochure she put together showing the current state of some of the schools the bonds would effect.

“It’s going to take some salesmanship,” Larson said, and, “A picture is worth a million words.”

Board member Sarah Welton said she would like to find a way for people to see the state of the schools with their own eyes.

“I think we ought to offer some tours of the schools,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.