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MY View!
August 6 2001 marked the beginning of ANOTHER attempt by our board of education to begin the process of running the infamous bond proposal. The rest of this column will consist mainly of MY VIEW on the tour and its components occurring on August 6.
Our first stop on the Tour de Manistique happened to be Fairview School. Fairview’s gym held the FIRST occurrence of some misunderstanding.
As the school’s architect, Donald Morgridge, began his speech on all the “problems” with Fairview School, I caught a line he used that infuriated me. He claimed that maintenance was NOT a problem with the schools. He stated MANY times that the schools were not going to cave in anytime soon. His main argument, at least as I took it, was the buildings are not up to code. Many regulatory codes are lacking in our schools. I agree with that fact, yet some of these codes are some 25 years old! As I pointed out at the public comment period of the meeting, the failure to keep up with these codes is simply a maintenance issue.
Mr. Groh echoed Mr. Morgridge in stating this is not a maintenance issue rather “problems the schools have acquired”. Simply put, it is of my opinion that problems are not “acquired” if the proper maintaining is practiced.
Now, from the gym we were pretty much allowed to roam the rest of the school to find all the terrible problems! I happened to be walking behind Mrs. Kay Hinkson as she happened to glance down at a nearby fire extinguisher. Without allowing any time to seriously think anything over she turned the orange tag attached to the extinguisher over revealing the date the extinguisher was last checked. (12/01/99) Meaning this extinguisher was 2 years old! As Kay pointed out, extinguishers, such as this one, NEED to be checked yearly. The extinguisher NEEDS to be checked to MAINTAIN it!
When Mr. Watchorn was asked why/how this could happen he could do nothing but shrug his shoulders. I happened upon an extinguisher at Lakeside and later made a point of finding ALL extinguishers at Lincoln only to find the latest, most current date to be 12/01/99! When I mentioned this problem at public comment I received an astonishing response from the board. They overwhelmingly treated this issue as a trivial, minor one. Hoping I’m not being TOO crude, if a fire occurred in one of our schools and we lost one single child this extinguisher issue would no longer be trivial!
After we searched Lakeside up and down we left heading towards the spot where I anticipated most on the entire tour. Once we arrived at Lincoln School one reoccurring theme was expressed about the school that “was built like a tank”. The basement area, as we were informed, is SUPPOSED to be used in the occurrence of a tornado. As board members traveled down to the basement and back they all found it extremely funny that the basement was allowed to be kept in such a manner. I heard many ridiculous, uncalled for jokes about the “dungeon”, as one board member accurately described it, from many board members. To go briefly back to the maintenance issue, allowing this to occur in the first place IS a maintenance issue!
I have only cited a few examples of maintenance problems, but, if needed, I will cite more at a later time! I simply do NOT appreciate being told the current problems are not maintenance problems when they clearly ARE!
This problem simply relays everything I have previously expressed. The board NEEDS the trust of the community! Some members would agree to disagree about this going from some statements made at the special meeting on the 6th. Trust seems to not be one of the board’s bigger issues to tackle. As I’m sure you have figured out, MY VIEW on the trust department is simply without trust the entire community will hurt, because NOTHING will be accomplished with all the bickering!
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