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School ballot: $19.8M bond, 4 candidates
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · August 10, 2017
The last pieces of the Sept. 12 school ballot fell into place last week with two more candidates filing to run for the school board and two parents turning in a petition to put a $19.8 million bond referendum to the voters.
Further, the school district will offer early voting at Back to School Night and a forum for voters to both question candidates and the details behind the additions backed primarily by the $19.8 million.
Brian Neuberger and Amanda Whaley, both of West Branch, recently filed petitions to get their names on the Sept. 12 ballot for two seats on the Board of Education. They join Tim Moss and Greg Hetrick, who filed earlier.
All four will compete for the seats currently held by Mike Colbert and Mike Owen, both of whom announced they would not run for another four-year term.
The school board met Aug. 3 for a brief special meeting to officially place the $19.8 million, two-question referendum on the ballot.
Residents Molly Pedersen and Lindsay Seydel, the latter of whom will teach fourth grade here when school starts, presented on Aug. 2 to Board President Mike Colbert a petition to place the referendum on the ballot.
The two collected 153 signatures, Colbert said, and they only needed 86.
“I’m pretty confident we’ll be OK,” he said, referring to the possibility that someone might challenge the validity of the signatures.
The school board members and superintendent thanked the two for collecting 11 pages of signatures, with Owen noting they did so “in hot weather.”
Pedersen said a “couple” of residents declined to sign the petition.
The school will host Back To School Night at Hoover Elementary on Aug. 21. Voters who are prepared to vote on the referendum may stop by from noon to 6:30 p.m. to take advantage of an early, satellite voting station set up inside near the main entrance.
This is the second attempt to get voters to approve funding and an increased tax rate, both of which need a 60-percent supermajority to pass.
Voters in February provided simple majority support, with 56 percent voting “yes” to what was then a $19.11 million bond, and 55 percent behind raising the tax rate from $2.70 per $1,000 assessed property value to $3.50.
The Sept. 12 questions will be virtually the same, except that the bond went up to $19.8 million.
Like last time, the school district will produce a flyer which will outline the project. Superintendent Kevin Hatfield passed out a draft version of the new flyer to board members, which it will distribute to the public prior to the election.
The flyer will show changes to the project, many of which school leaders said came in response to voter feedback.
The core project remains unchanged, building additions at West Branch High School and Hoover Elementary while demolishing West Branch Middle School.
Work at the high school builds middle school classrooms and a 700-seat auditorium to the front of the current structure; making mechanical upgrades (heating and air conditioning) to the west wing; and remodeling the library, cafeteria, lobby, current auditorium and music room.
Work at Hoover Elementary tears out the section where the north and west wings meet and replaces it with a two-story addition that includes five classrooms, and a new music room, art room and principal’s office. It also creates a new entrance at the hub, facing west. The current entrance faces east near the north end of the school.
The new entrance corresponds with a plan to tear down the middle school and replace it with both a parking lot and a looping road for parents to drop off children.
The flyer includes sketches of the new building exteriors, square footage, a sample ballot, voting information and an explanation of how the $19.8 million would affect owners of properties of particular values.
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