Post by friend on Apr 29, 2008 9:01:05 GMT -6
Maybe I'll see you at the next one.
Rural...looking forward to it (I mean it sincerely).
Your questions are legitimate, thoughtful (and dare I even say challenging). There is a risk that the Court will not accept the arguments set forth by the NSFOC lawsuit for the reasons that you have raised (the language of the referendum being the central legal question to be decided by the Court). I am not so naive to believe that this is not a possibility.
However, I just sincerely believe this is a black and white issue (right vs. wrong). Even though I suspect that the intentions of the Board are good (at least 6 of the 7 believe that the District needs a third school), the process and path they have followed in the last few months is not (the ends justifying the means question).
The Board and Administration clearly and unequivocally represented that the referendum was to build a third school on the BB site, and this site was deliberately and painstakingly selected in order to INDUCE the voters to pass the 2nd referendum after the first referendum failed. Yes there were voters who would have voted yes no matter where the school was to be located, but many only voted yes because of the announced location (you can challenge whether this was due to selfish self interests, etc., but regardless of the reason for this, this is each voter's constitutional right).
The Board was very well aware (in fact, they were the ones who announced this) that the site location was THE essential ingredient NECESSARY to get the referendum passed (and believed that absent identifying the exact location, the referendum would fail again). I think it is clear that the Board believed (and I also believe) that if it had selected the EOLA site, the referendum would have failed (based on its own site selection reports and "polling" research)! Is this something that we can agree on??
The Board did not say (and publish) that the referendum was to authorize the Board to use its best efforts to get BB, and if they did not or could not, it would look at other sites (especially sites that it eliminated as possibilities before the election).
Instead, the Board published document after document specifically, clearly and unequivocally stating that the referendum was to build on BB (and that no matter what the cost, it would accept and could afford the jury's verdict, even if it was 600K per acre--which apparently was another misrepresentation?).
If the Board believes it can not afford the BB site or that paying this much money is not responsible...there is only one ethical and legal alternative available to it...a new referendum to the voters. This is especially true in that the first referendum failed by a vote of 42% to 58% and the second passed by a vote of 58% to 42%. Thus, if even 8.00001% of the voters would have voted differently if there the Board had chosen NO site location or had promised the EOLA site location(something we will never know, but something the District believed would have happened from their own statements), the referendum would have failed again.
As I indicated in a prior post...either the Board authorized that a referendum that was limited to the BB land (in which case the current actions are illegal) OR it intended that the referendum language, despite what it repeatedly told the voters (again, even in my kid's backpack), would allow it the flexibility to change sites if it did not like or could not afford the jury verdict in the condemnation case (in which case, the current action is also illegal and they did commit fraud to get the referendum passed, in that this is in direct contradiction to what they told the voters in order to induce the passage of the referendum).
Either way, the recent action of the Board and Administration is, in my opinion, wrong (both morally and legally).
The fact that it has endorsed, by its silence, the community to battle each other on the "ends" question (turning this into an arguement about justice and entitlement) is simply reprehensible to me.
Finally, I agree with what many have pointed out...that we elected the Board use its best judgment, and that the law gives them great discretion in carrying forth these duties. However, the law ALSO requires the Board to get voter approval when building a new school! Based on its own representations both before and after the referendum was passed, the referendum only authorized the Board to build a school on the BB site.
IMO.............No matter what the issue might be or whatever side you take on an issue, people need to know that they have been heard. Period!
When people do not feel that they are being heard what is the only way left to express themselves? A lawsuit!
I do not see this HS situation regarding the lawsuit as people being completely selfish. I think that people in the SD reached the "end of their rope" in asking the SB to take a step back and lsiten to the communtiy. Not rush from deal to deal.
When the first referendum in 2005 failed, it was a way that the community was communicating back to the SB.
Now there is a lawsuit. It is just another way that the community is communicating with the SB.
