SitelogIQ education consultant Pat Westby, right, speaks as part of his presentation on bond referendum support during the July 8 Green Mountain-Garwin school board meeting. Also pictured (from left), GMG Superintendent Chris Petersen, school member Kristine Kienzle, and newly-hired secondary principal Clyde Tarrence. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

GREEN MOUNTAIN – The GMG school board took one more baby step forward in the process required to put a bond referendum on the ballot this November to replace the district’s nearly century-old secondary building in Garwin.

The bulk of the board’s regular meeting this past Monday evening was spent listening to a presentation on community outreach/referendum support by education consultant Pat Westby with SitelogIQ. During last month’s regular meeting, the board approved hiring the design-build firm to guide the district’s community engagement efforts ahead of a possible referendum as well as to provide design services if a bond passes.

Any referendum put to voters for general obligation bonds to fund school facility improvements – whether this November or in a subsequent election – would require a supermajority (60% +1) to pass.

After providing a brief bio of himself, Westby – who recently retired as superintendent of Sauk Centre Public Schools in west central Minnesota – rhetorically posed the question, “If you choose to go to a bond referendum, how will we support you?”

If the district does decide later this week to begin circulating a bond petition – something Superintendent Chris Petersen made clear was on the table – Westby said his referendum support team will be ready to spring into action with an information-only communications plan meant to “engage and inform” using GMG-specific branding.

“If you are having some anxiety … I’m hoping this slide will help you,” Westby said about halfway through his presentation. On the screen behind him, a “potential timeline” of referendum events was shown.

The timeline included holding “pre-resolution meetings” and completing the necessary bond petition work between July 15 and Aug. 9; adopting the subsequent resolution — which would put a bond referendum on the Nov. 5 ballot — during the Aug. 12 school board meeting; and beginning a “communication effort” sometime around Aug. 27 – 10 weeks ahead of the election.

A school bond petition in Iowa needs signatures from at least 25% of the number of voters who voted in the last school election before it can be presented to the school board president. Superintendent Petersen indicated GMG’s petition would need at least 51 signatures.

Once the petition has been filed with the board president, a district has up to 10 days to call an election (the resolution).

“We have time,” Westby told the board to which board member Doug Dieleman softly responded, “Just not much.”

At the end of his presentation, Westby asked if there were any questions or comments from the board. A lengthy discussion then ensued regarding the design of any new building or renovation. Westby told the board that if the (hypothetical) bond were to pass on Nov. 5, the next phase would include design, to which board member Kristine Kienzle said she would like to garner “some buy-in” from the community on design before the election.

“I feel like we’re trying to sell a blank piece of paper,” Dieleman said, piggybacking on Kienzle’s comments.

“I understand [completely] what you’re saying,” Westby replied, “Right now we’re very high level of what would a new building look like.”

Board president Jill Roberts eventually attempted to alleviate Kienzle and Dieleman’s concerns.

“To me, it’s much simpler than that,” Roberts said. “We have a very old building that has to be replaced – which is basically classrooms. For $11 million, we need to be able to take down a building and put in some more classrooms somewhere. That doesn’t take a lot of discussion. What classrooms are they? We won’t know until we have some money in our pocket.”

Board member Ann Jackson also attempted to address design concerns by saying, in part, “I mean this [with] no disrespect to anyone. The majority of the staff members who will be working in that building will not be paying for that building.”

Jackson further said pre-resolution meetings would give the public – including staff – the opportunity to share their ideas on design or anything else that pertains to the referendum.

Later, Roberts asked Westby if the short timeline was “doable” to which Westby replied, “I’m going to say yes. … Even if we were having this conversation in February or March or April, we really wouldn’t be ramping up our communications until we get [10 weeks out from the election] anyway.”

The discussion then wound back, again, to the hypothetical resolution language and how that would relate to design.

“Your thousand-foot goal,” Westby said, “is to eliminate the [19]25 [secondary] building [and] replace [it] with an efficient one. … You could spend six to eight weeks [with a community task force], and the recommendation could be exactly that.”

“When I speak with anyone in the community, I don’t hear anything different that we should do except take down that old [secondary] building,” Jackson said. “I don’t think we’re going to get a different answer by putting this off … We already know the answer.”

Before the discussion ended, board member Justin Hornberg shared what he had been hearing as of late from GMG property taxpayers.

“There’s plenty of conversations out in the community right now … I’ve heard everything from, ‘Why are we doing this?’ -‘ Wouldn’t it make more sense to share with a neighboring district and turn our building [into a] middle school?'”

“I’ve heard, ‘If we go forward with this and it passes and some of the redistricting that Gov. Reynolds is trying to do happens – and we get redistricted out – what happens to that building?'”

Hornberg said he’s also had several questions about affordability in light of the district’s recent budget reductions – reductions the district turned to former superintendent Gary Sinclair for help with addressing.

“It is the school district’s responsibility to provide the correct information and to try and combat [incorrect information],” Westby said.

The board took no action following Westby’s nearly hour-long presentation. Superintendent Petersen said the next step is for the district’s attorney to draw up the bond petition and get it circulating in the community.