I recently read “School requests bond recount” suggesting that because of the close count most people who voted didn’t understand what was being proposed. Choosing to give more credit to the people’s intelligence and less to our San Juan Prosecutor Randall Gaylord and the school board, I suggest it isn’t us who are not understanding reality.

We had a proposed school bond for $8,000,000 dollars for a school that has an enrollment of 129 students in 9-12 with a predicted graduating class of 89 along with a declining middle- to lower-income class which, because of the affordable housing being offered to this group of hard workers, will more likely either continue this way or go down even further and along with a growing senior fixed income class, the burden of more taxes might be the cause of another growing class of people to leave the island. I think a 2.3 million dollar track, even with a $1 million donation, isn’t the lesson we need to be teaching our students. Plus the upkeep with our rainy weather and our predicted weather patterns will most likely be seen as a burden rather than a blessing during most of the school year, and for the most part it will also be an ugly, muddy eyesore. I voted no and after having two kids in this school and two grand-kids there, I think I understand the school system. It might take a village to raise a child but it takes economic common sense practices to keep that village growing.

John Cook

Orcas Island