From Steve Vogel
Monroe
To the Editor:
Vote NO now so we can vote yes later to a high school that makes sense for our community. With a recession looming and a school district with a steady decline in enrollment, an 88 million dollar facility needs further transparency to provide our community more time to make an educated decision. This important 88 million dollar decision was made by 1 survey within a bulk mailed packet sent to 7,200 Monroe residents to which only 1,322 people responded; that response was only 18.4% of the total sent out. How is less than a 20% response enough to make such an important financial decision? Why wasn’t such an important document sent out in a clear, bolded, and well advertised manner for such an important community decision? What are the other 81.6% or 5,875 school tax property owners thinking?
Our students need a new facility, that is not in question, but is 88 million dollars necessary or can there be some compromises to make a facility that meets student needs but is more affordable for the community? In 2018, Wisconsin Dells built a new 210,000 square foot high school that can house up to 650 students for 33 million compared to Monroe’s request of 88 million for 264,000 square-foot facility to house around 700 students. In a community where there are already worker shortages and businesses closing, how do we expect to run such a large facility? Even if you use The Dells model and increase the price to 66 million (to cover inflation) to build a similar school, where is that extra 22 million going? Sports complexes? Elaborate classrooms? Will building an elaborate facility include investing in and retaining highly qualified teachers? Will these complexes result in higher test scores than neighboring school districts with basic facilities that are already testing higher than our children?
What happened to the community input for the “next steps” on this facility and location decision? Morning commutes are already congested on the east side between school and commercial traffic. Is this truly the ideal location knowing this information? It’s no secret that we need a new school but it needs to be a transparent process with more community input. Isn’t there a compromise of building a new, less expensive school with plenty of room for future expansions in a location the community agrees on?
From Paul W. Voegeli
Monroe
To the Editor:
This is in response to a letter published on October 22 from another Green County lawyer in which he urged citizens to vote only for Democrat candidates this year. Although the letter mentioned Donald Trump by name only once, dislike and disdain for Trump were the obvious bases of the letter. I would agree that the Trump presidency left much to be desired. Other than three good Supreme Court appointments, I believe that the Trump presidency can at best be characterized as mediocre. Trump would do the nation a favor if he never left Mar-a-Lago again.
That said, there are nevertheless some exemplary Republication candidates who deserve our votes. Rather than listing all of them, I will mention just one. That is Howard Marklein, our State Senator, Senator Marklein, a CPA by training, is now the co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee in the Legislature. That is generally considered to be the most important Committee in the Legislature. Senator Marklein’s work on that Committee is admired by members of both parties. Using his accounting expertise, he has used his Committee position to eliminate large chunks of waste in the State Budget and to expose other items that were for years hidden in the budget. A candidate like Senator Marklein deserves to re-elected, regardless of what a person may think of Donald Trump.
The letter that I am replying to also accused Republicans of “obstructing” legislation. That is of course a pejorative word. The Republicans have certainly blocked the passage of what would have been very bad legislation. The best example is the Build Back Better bill that Biden tried to pass in 2021. That legislation had a price tag of $3.8 trillion and included every hand out that any liberal has ever dreamed up from free day care to free community college. If killing legislation like that is obstruction, then I would say that we need more obstruction.
Finally, regarding inflation, nearly all economists agree that our present inflation is the direct result of the huge and unnecessary stimulus payments that Biden pushed through in 2021 after the pandemic was over. Those payments were made before there was any war in Europe, Voters will hardly be comforted when Nancy Pelosi points out that inflation is even higher in Europe than in this country.
From Jan Lefevre
Monroe
To the Editor:
After reviewing many letters from the public supporting a new Monroe High School, I feel compelled to sound off:
1. Why hasn’t proper maintenance been done all these years of fixing, replacing, and updating the high school? Where was our taxpayer money going? Doesn’t the school budget account for these things?
2. If a school was built on low land, was there an engineering study done to determine the potential problems of locating there?
3. When a building is constructed on low land, it reasonable to expect some settling, flooding, and mold due to heavy rains. So, when mold occurs, why isn’t the mold problem taken care of right away?
4. Since there is a decrease in school and city population, what is the justification for a larger school and need for more property?
5. The school test scores have been poor. Monroe HS ranked 179th in Wisconsin and 5,948th in the national rankings. Furthermore, 38% of students are economically disadvantaged. I know of one father who drives his child to school in Dane County every day, for a better education than what Monroe has to offer. The current school building has nothing to do with his decision.
6. One letter to the editor stated that property taxes won’t go much higher. Seriously? This a huge conversation around town. My property taxes will increase approximately $300 per year, for 10 years. Personally, I cannot afford this type of tax increase, nor will many other property owners in Monroe.
7. Why not repair/upgrade our existing HS facilities in lieu of building a new high school priced at well over $80M? Certainly, upgrades and repair can be done for substantially less, and if contractors are telling us differently, then it’s time to find more contractors willing to bid.
So, what has been learned because of past problems? Absolutely nothing, here we are again trying to push $millions in new taxpayer funded school projects with the weakest of Justification.
This referendum is being advanced in spite of a declining student enrollment, rising inflation, and rising costs on everything from food, to gasoline, to electricity and energy heating our homes. The average American family is already seeing cost of living increases averaging nearly $500 per month!
Let’s use some common sense. Let’s fix and/or upgrade the existing HS where needed, and work with Monroe property owners and tax payers. We need to get through these next few years of high inflation and costs, and not worry about additional $hundreds if not $thousands per year for a new HS that really cannot be justified.
“VOTE NO” on the school referendum.
