The good people in the Toledo School District were once again tricked and misled by the school district and by the state representatives who proposed the last school bond measure and that is a fact.
The TSD had ran four past bonds that all “failed” because they weren’t going to get a brand new school for their tax dollars. TSD then figured out a better way to hoodwink the taxpayers again by promoting and pasting their $7 million bond, which promised the taxpayers that they would be getting a brand new school instead of a remodeled school.
Plain and simple, they lied to us once again! They even made videos telling us that we were going to get a “brand new school and not a remodeled one,” if we would only pass their $7 million school bond. Even the bond measure itself stated that the bond was for a “new school building” and had no mention of being used for remodeling.
One of the two people who got this process to move forward and had publicly stated that he along with the CEO of Toledo Tel would each “chip in” $25,000 each for the designing of the new school ($50,000). One of those two people had no idea that he would be paying for a design of a remodel or modernization instead of getting a completely new school. Now the people in Toledo are getting mad because they have been deceived, so now the TSD is trying to cover their rears.
Unlike the other four school bonds, this was sold to the people as being for an all new school. For years they told us that the building was unsafe and that it had to be replaced or it would be condemned, yet now they are going to be building new construction around and to it.
In the past, they were required to keep accurate minutes so that the public could see how the Facilities Advisory Committee came up with the costs of each new construction price. But this time, they intentionally failed to keep accurate minutes of the design committee so that the public wouldn’t know that they were intending to do a remodel job instead of all new construction as promised.
What’s worse is that they are now building this remodeled school to carry over 400 students and have apparently decided to use the bond money that would have been used to build all new shops and a brand new gym!
Back in 2009, they told us that the school district would have well over 1,200 students by now, yet we still have less than 800 students. Our high school only has some 278 students, yet they are building it for well over 400 students
The taxpayers who voted for this school bond should demand a complete investigation on how this debacle has come to be, and Toledo voters deserve an all new school and not a remodeled, pieced together one instead.
Bob Reid
member of the Design Committee
Toledo
