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Thursday, October 18, 2018

School Bond Public Hearing

Bobbie Bicknell Coray, Reporter
Rich Civic Times

GARDEN CITY, Utah.  October 15, 2018.   The proposal for an $8 million school bond drew over thirty people to a public hearing in Garden City. The meeting lasted two hours as the participants had many questions.

There are two building improvements proposed.  One is a breezeway connecting two buildings at the Randolph School and adding additional space for the theater.
“One of the things we wanted was a single entrance for security purposes,” said Dale Lamborn, Superintendent of Rich County School District. The breezeway addition can be used as back stage storage for the existing theater and give direct access to the music room instead of going outside to get to the music room which provides for more security and is energy efficient in the winter.

Rich High Principal Rick Larson said that the security breezeway is needed.  Currently the doors are open for twelve minutes per hour which means that it is not secure.  Secondly, the wind blows in Randolph making the buildings cold and the outdoor area gets icy.  They have to put on ice melt and it is tracked into classrooms.  And the school will finally will have ADA access.  The kids in the plays have to be outside in the dark.  Props get discarded because of no storage.  There will be stage storage in the proposed breezeway.

The larger addition is planned on the west side of the Rich Middle School.  There will be a gym with 490 seats along the side and a stage for performances. The gym will have nice dressing rooms that will be accessible for both basketball and football.  This year for the first volleyball and football games the visiting teams changed in the shop and band rooms and the next team had to go to the special ed space on the stage.  It would be nice to have multiple locker rooms for visiting teams.  There are not lot of home games here because the other teams don’t want to come because they have to commit 5 to 6 hours waiting to play since there is only one gym.   The gym floor can be used for seating for theater and music performances.  The new music room will be adjacent to the stage. 

They will build a good science room so that students can do experiments.  The science room is very important.  The last time an experiment was done the fire alarm went off because of improper ventilation.

Another need is additional special needs classrooms, now both high school and elementary special need students share the same facility.  Small group instruction is being done in the hallway.  With the addition the middle school special needs can be moved into the old music room. 

Principal Kip Motta, Rich Middle School, said that the special needs classes are being held on the stage in lunchroom which is not ADA.  These students need to have a focused area; now they are distracted by other students going in and out of the lunchroom.

Room for music and fine arts is critical, at the present time middle school students are taken by bus from Laketown to Randolph for those classes which takes up time and money.   It will affect the elementary school too, because the children can practice their programs on the new stage.  It also allows the gym to be used for recess in bad weather.
 
A participant asked if there has been a study of student growth and is the district planning for more growth not just present needs.  Motta said that these plans will suffice with our projected growth.  This will last us for twenty or thirty years. 
Duane Gifford, citizen, said that the elementary students have PE every day. Middle school has staggered PE because of a lack of personnel.  “Sixty to seventy percent of our kids are in team sports.  It is tough for middle school and high school to share.”

Joey Stocking asked if the gym and stage could be used for community events. The existing gym is booked every night now for school events, but there should be time for community use.

Cindy Caldwell noted that there needs to be a common gathering space for the students, and the architect said that it could be incorporated.

Scott Tollentino, Board Member, projected growth was done by consultants from Envision Utah, Bryce Huefner, Board Member, researched projected growth, so there was a lot of thought into how big and how expansive we need to be. 
Monty Weston, Board Member, said that the storage areas could be used as classrooms if there is more growth than we expect.  “If we have to bring in modulars for classrooms that is not secure, but if we use the storage areas for classrooms later the modular would be good for storage.”

The Board hopes to be bidding this next spring.  There is a comfortable budget and doing both buildings at the same time might save some costs. 

Jennie Johnson, Business Administrator, said that the average primary home is assessed at $156,000.  The annual tax impact will be $35.77 a year. A $300,000 home is $68.66.  For a secondary home or business, a $200,000 home will be taxed $82.23.

Over 70% of this bond is paid for by the secondary home owners. The debt service for the district will be over $660,000 a year for 20 years.  This minimizes the tax impact.  If more people move in then per-capita taxes will go down. 

The tax exempt bonds will sell on the open market.  The sale of bond timing is good this year.

“After we pass the bond, we can go after grants and use the money from the bond as a match.  Then perhaps we could pay it down.  We are one of the lowest taxed districts in the state,” said Lamborn.


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