The firing of the coaches by the City School Board caused an eruption of sentiment that ranged from support, to get rid of all of them. I wrote on Countynewsonline.org after it happened and offered a couple of solutions for the problem of dealing with this board. There was a recall petition of all of the board. That is a simple matter; all it takes is identifying the act that would warrant the recall, (which might be a problem) getting the petition signed by the correct number of people and then having it placed on the ballot. I haven’t heard of THAT happening yet..
Then I mentioned taking out a petition and gathering the correct amount of signatures to get your name placed on the ballot to actually run against these people that no one seems to like. I don’t think that’s happened yet. I also made mention that if we the people got rid of them, their names wouldn’t be on the brass plaque in the hall way of the new school. That would fix them! (OUCH!)
One of the board members questioned me on my motives for offering these suggestions, especially the first one and the last one. Well you see, I’ve watched things here for a long time. Previously some people would write letters to the editor where they had to sign their name. Now with chat boxes on two local web pages, there exists the ability to publish in print ones likes and dislikes without ever identifying one’s self. My suggestions were met exactly how I figured they’d be met. Absolutely nothing happened and they are still talking today.
If anything, some of the biggest complainers stopped complaining. That’s probably a good thing. What it says is that a lot of people complain for an opportunity to vent. They have no intention of actually doing anything about the problem, if in fact one actually exists. There was obviously some sort of problem with the coaches in question and perhaps we just don’t need to drag them through the mud any more than has already been done. Perhaps we don’t really need to know why they were fired. By the same token, the board making decisions with an empty gallery at most board meetings doesn’t say a whole lot about the rest of the people living in the district. That’s probably the place to do your complaining, before the fact, not after.
So since the board isn’t getting impeached and no one is running against them, that part is over with. Now to the task at hand.
We need to do something about our antique school buildings. We have five of them. They range in age from 100 years old to 50 years old. The 50 year old one is still acceptable mostly because of construction practices that were used in the 1960’s when it was built. The rest of the buildings are falling apart. That isn’t because they’ve not been taken care of, it’s because you can only fix things so many times, and these buildings are at their limit.
The energy inefficiency is only a part of the problem of the high cost to run these buildings. The roofs leak, the pipes leak, the pipes are buried in the floors, the electrical panels are obsolete and on and on. in May we had the good foresight to pass an operating levy to keep the district going. That was a good thing. A new building that will operate at half the cost of the old ones will guarantee that the operating levy will serve us well for a long time. Now we have an opportunity to have the State of Ohio share in the cost of a new energy efficient building and even pay for the dismantling of the old buildings. If we keep the situation the way it is, we are just throwing good operating money after bad situations.
Joe Payne was correct in his recent article, just because one thinks that the board made a mistake on the coaches doesn’t give the rest of us the right to make a mistake on funding a new school. The last generation of people to have had to worry about a new school is almost extinct. Let’s don’t try to compare apples and oranges anymore. The new school is a separate issue and needs the attention of all of us to get all of the facts and make an intelligent decision on voting day.
Traditionally about 30% of the 15,374 registered voters in the Greenville City School District vote on issues. In May when the operating levy was on the ballot 20% of the 15,000 people voted. So much for complaining where it really counts.
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