Orcas school bond vote to wait

The Orcas Island School District will wait until November before submitting a bond to a vote of the people.

Board members voted 4-0 for the delay at their March 24 meeting. The board had hoped to have the bond on the April or May ballot, but the members decided to wait after Superintendent Barry Acker told them that the district has yet to receive an acceptable drawing or a price estimate to renovate the middle school gym and add a vocational education facility. “It’s back to the drawing boards,” Acker admitted after receiving an estimate of about $2.4 million for the above-mentioned projects. The superintendent also said that additional information is needed about the other building renovation projects now being considered.

Acker said one of his main tasks will be “to pound on the architect to make sure we’re not being overcharged. I think it’s real important to get the estimates as close as we can get,” he said. The information will come from architect Roger Axelson, of ARA Architects, of Bellingham, who has worked on building projects for many public schools.

The superintendent told the board it had two options: It could go to the voters this spring with a technology levy, then go back in November with a bond dealing with new construction and renovations for the elementary, middle and high schools. Or, it could wait with the entire package until November.

The second option got unanimous support, with board members and staff expressing fear that if the school submits two different funding requests, and at different times of the year, the second one will get shot down. “If we do May,” elementary school Principal Coleen O’Brien said, “I fear people will say, ‘We just helped you.’” Board member Janet Brownell agreed. She thought splitting the two “would assure the tech part,” but make it that much more difficult to get the building renovations approved.

HIgh School Principal Barbara Kline and board member Bruce Orchid added that waiting until November will give the district enough time to identify the projects most needed to be carried out, and what they will cost the taxpayers.

Orchid put it this way. “Let’s take the time to do it the right way,” he said.

Board member Janet Brownell, however, offered a different reason for waiting. “I feel there will be a huge Democratic turnout in November,” she said, intimating that Democrats are more likely to vote for higher taxes than Republicans.

Athletic Director and football coach Dennis Dahl urged the board to undertake an aggressive campaign to get the bond approved. “We need to advertise,” he said. “We need to sell our school, and be out front with it.” He also offered to conduct tours of the middle school gym so voters would see why it is in desperate need of repair.

Acker agreed. He said, “We need to educate the public of what the needs are. They need to know where the tax dollars are going.”

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