At the last school board meeting, there was an interesting item on the agenda, an entrance archway to be constructed on Gold Drive. Some members of the school board were surprised by this project. There seemed to be some confusion because the project appears to be already under way even though the board had not been informed of or asked to provide funds for it. North East resident Jen Kilgas asked if they had an engineers stamp since the arch would be going over a roadway and was told Gene Davis was drawing up plans. Board member Glenn Craig asked if the rumor was true that steel had already been purchased. There was no answer.
This is a very odd situation raising all kinds of questions and taxpayers deserve a full explanation for the actions of the administration. If this project is already under way, work needs to be halted until the administration explains what is going on and gets permission from the board to proceed.
As a reminder to North East residents, municipal elections will be held this year and four school board seats will be on the ballot.
Chris says
Sounds like a failure of oath of office here. Fiduciary responsibility failure on this one by the sounds of it.
Jen says
This is an odd situation that requires transparency. We were told at the mtg they would likely look to the public to fund the project yet it sure appears the project is already underway if a local business is drawing up plans for its construction. Not too many folks work for free!
I am of the opinion an arch like this looks appropriate in a park setting or on a campus where you have foot traffic… I think of the West Erie plaza that has a beautiful structure, which I’m sure was costly, yet it looks lost in a parking lot. There’s zero landscaping around it to provide any balance… and that’s what this will look like driving onto our campus. My suggestion is to put a new automated sign on the northwest corner outside of the football field so messages can be displayed to the community. But this also will require public funds and board approval!
All this being said, if we have extra money to be spending on an arch why are we not paying our staff more, putting musical instruments in the hands of our youngest children and most of all, putting money into academics!! I can think of many great things to spend 20k on that would benefit our students now and into the future.
It’s time for accountability.
Lisa Bresney-Reynolds says
A decorative arch seems a frivolous waste of taxpayers’ money. This tax payer agrees with the above comment about putting our money into the actual education of our students.
I think permission/approval from the community should be required before something this expensive and unnecessary is erected.