Letter: Defeating school project could lower taxes

To the editor:

For all those folks who do take the Daily Journal, please tell your neighbors about the Center Grove school board’s $10 million spending issue. Many of your neighbors don’t take the Journal and have not heard that the Center Grove school board wants to build a fieldhouse with four new basketball courts, a six-lane indoor running track, and add 5,000 square feet to the weight room for the athletes to work out.

The school board set the bond issue amount at $10 million — exactly one dollar under the amount that would have required a referendum vote, so that all White River Township taxpayers would not have a say. On their own website they state that “over four dozen parents” wanted this space built for their kids. Also on the school website they state that the school’s financial officer, Paul Gabriel says, “If we do not do any of these projects our tax rate will almost certainly go down.”

I am all for taxes going down! I’m for those little old ladies (and gentlemen) who are cutting their medications in two to save money so they can pay their taxes and keep their homes. Every tax cut is a blessing to them.

I’ve seen letters from coaches and others who give their reasons why this fieldhouse (the original name for what they now call the “Student Activity Center”) should be built. They make it look like we in opposition do not support our students.

On the contrary, we support our students just as much as they do, more so perhaps, because we have paid taxes for 20, 30, even 40 years and more. We appreciate our tax money being used to build more classrooms, hire more teachers, improve security systems to each building, and keep the buses safe for all the children who ride them to school — in short, to keep them safe and teach them.

It is so important to send the school board a message by signing a “no” petition at the White River Township Trustee’s Office on South Morgantown Road. If this $10 million spending goes through this time, they could plan to do it again to get a natatorium built to replace the 20-year-old swimming pool.

Hours to sign are 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Dec. 9, then 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. two Saturdays, Dec. 5 and 12. The signings in favor of the spending have been at sports events and venues where they have many sports parents who are in favor of all taxpayers paying for it. The petitions for both sides have to be turned in at the courthouse on Dec. 14, so we’re running out of time to sign.

Please, please, tell as many neighbors as you can, and, if you have already signed the “no” petition, I can tell you that those little old ladies would say, “Bless you!”

Marian Martin

White River Township