Why do people keep insisting on attending meetings?

There was a packed room of 50 people at the Harrison Community Club tonight to hear the District extol the virtues of the new Western middle school site. That must have surprised the District because they advertised it as poorly as they advertised the boundary meeting so as to discourage attendance. The only reason there were so many people was because one woman who had heard about it made her own fliers and hand delivered them to her neighbors. The District did not notify them, and only posted the meeting notice on the news tribune’s web site a couple hours prior to the meeting. Was that incompetence or nefariousness?

Tim Grover, Laura Condon, Dr. Dixon, Bill Hanson, the Rep from FI Salter, a couple JCI people, and an architect from LHB were there to answer questions along with Facilities manager Kerry Leider. Dr. Dixon was shockingly brief. He usually takes an hour and a half and sucks all the oxygen out of the room at meetings. One person reported that he seemed smaller and less confident.

The Architect showed the layout of the grounds and a very attractive building design. He explained that the rock was only 6 inches to 15 ft deep in the spots they wanted to build and that blasting might not be required. He also said that rock was the best possible surface to build a cement building on.

When they opened it up to the audience for questions hands shot up. Concerns ranged from safety, to the distance up the hill for the students to walk, to cut-through traffic, to problems with emergency vehicles getting to the site. Some of the questions were quite heated.

Once again no traffic study had been conducted – but they are “going to” do one. This was a big issue. Many people asked about the Oneota Forest which some had tried to buy only to be told that it was “parkland” owned by the County. Kerry Leider said he had never heard of Oneota forest but said that the School District had been talking to St. Louis County for almost two years about buying the site. It was tax forfeit land and the County seemed interested in selling it.

Someone asked if it was a done deal. Kerry replied that the Board was presented with it and had voted to approve it. He claimed that there had been meetings to select this site over others. One citizen asked when those meetings were held and why the people in the neighborhood had not been invited to attend and why tonight’s announcement was the first such meeting.

Hands were still in the air when the School representatives called it quits after two hours, perhaps because questions kept getting more pointed. One fellow asked why they were spending money on a bad site rather than use the Central site. Several people agreed.

Of course the School District did not tell the people at the meeting that the Minnesota Dept of Education had not yet approved this site or given the District permission to raise the $45 million it will take to build the school.

About the author