What a pathetic choice the Redmond School Board made last Wednesday evening.
These are incredibly challenging times with increasing unemployment in Central Oregon, and the decision the school board made is outrageous. People are struggling to pay their mortgages and wondering how they are going to continue to put food on the table. The Redmond School Board chose to give an 80 million dollar, two-and-half year project to a company from Sweden. Part of (our) hard-earned Central Oregon dollars are leaving America and going to Sweden. How does this fit with looking at the bigger picture of putting our country first in support of OUR citizens?!
The school board could have made different choices that would have been a whole lot more fair. They could have started over and put this job out to bid, putting all the contractors on a level playing field. Or the school board could have recognized that these are extraordinary times. Their decision COULD have reflected this, (by) choosing Nagelhout Construction. This would have been a courageous and extraordinary choice – going against the recommendation of the administration – that would have been RIGHT for Central Oregon and our country. But instead they went with the status quo, a big glitz, multi-billion dollar company (that) doesn’t even have a local telephone number in the phone book and their address is a portable job trailer! Wow, pretty sadly pathetic.
S. Taylor
This article appears in Apr 9-15, 2009.
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Maybe KNC should buy a pencil sharpener. Where does it say that KNC should get all the business in Deschutes County?
Kudos to the Redmond School Board for making a fiscally responsible decision!
S. Taylor your “Redmond Board Blew It” comments are right on target. With the current recession/depression in Central Oregon why is this facility being built period? A cabal of empire building school administrators and real estate agent/developers did a slick selling job on gullible Redmond voters to pass a bond measure that will be paid for by property taxes which are now under pressure from foreclosures and defaults on many homes in Redmond. Moreover, you have a school superintendent who now tells the public that there will be revenue shortfalls from among other things a declining Redmond school enrollment causing reduced head counts that the state pays on. In otherwords she may not have enough operating revenue to fund existing facilities. Where the hell is the money going to come from to operate the new high school? It might take this local economy five years to recover, if it ever does? In addition many question the under utilization of existing Redmond school facilities (eg.,Hartman School building). So ArelG you give kudos for “fiscally responsible” decisions to this crowd? You had better sharpen your pencil and a few other things before you start your cheer leading.