The following article,
written by Klaus Gaebel, is reprinted from The
Saugerties Post Star, 03-27-08 Eagle's View A View Around Town Saugerties Post Star , March 27,
2008 Last week letter writer Lanny Walter said about the roof
leaks in school buildings: "there has been too much weather,
and too little money in this district to solve the problem
completely." Actually, the leaks may be attributed to the games some
board trustees and a former superintendent played with
taxpayers. Let's look at the recent history. The last year Walter
served on the school board, as president by the way, the $62
million building project was under development. When Walter
was voted off the board, new board president Robert McCaig
saw the building project proposal finalized and proposed to
voters in December 2002. Superintendent Michael Singleton and McCaig convinced 6
other board members to approve the project as a single
proposition to voters, rather than split it into two or more
pieces. They secretly hoped voters would approve the
extravagancies along with the critical needs of the
district, including roofs, by presenting the project as a
take-it-all or nothing proposition. Voters didn't fall for
their trick, and voted the project down. Many roofs were known to have serious problems back then.
Their deterioration has continued. If the board had split
out some of the money for critical roof repairs (and a new
track!), or come up with a realistic total dollar project,
we'd have seen the leaks fixed by now, rather than still
dealing with the problems over five years later. In 2005 another capital project was presented to voters.
What's often forgotten is that the board split that project
into two pieces. The primary cost $24.9 million (including
roof repairs) and the add-on would have cost another $3.6
million. Voters accepted the $24.9 by 1,799 to 1,622, a 177
vote margin. The additional $3.6 was rejected. It's likely the bond would have been rejected by voters
if presented as a single proposition for almost $30 million.
Many taxpayers had seen their property taxes go up after
property revaluations occurred before the school bond vote,
and weren't in the mood to fork over that much money. Give trustee Michael Brennan credit for seeing the light
on that one. After being one of seven board members voting
to present the $62 million project to taxpayers, he
advocated for splitting the 2005 project into two pieces. In
so doing, he suffered the ire of his $62 million board
friends. (In 2006, voters approved an additional $2.75 million,
completely funded by the state.) It's been three years since voters approved the school
bond. The roofs are still leaking. We're told they're not
finished yet. If the money wasn't there earlier, it's not because
taxpayers weren't ready to fund the roof repairs. It's
because some trustees and a superintendent thought they were
smart in holding the roofs and other critical repairs
hostage, to get their December 2002 $62 million project
passed, as though it were ransom money. Additional contents not related to school issues are
published in the Saugerties Post Star. They are not
included here.