In addition to a presentation of next school year's budget, tonight's (July 25) Blaine school board meeting will include a discussion of a possible reduced bond initiative to take care of some of the district's most vital construction needs. As I'm sure most of your remember, the district's $32 million bond failed to pass by 0.8 percent in April, delaying improvements to most of Blaine High School's buildings.

After the district released a bond survey, which I wrote about here, school board members, faculty, community members and district superintendent Ron Spanjer met to discuss the survey results and develop a way to move forward with another bond. This June 20 meeting ended with the school board members in attendance asking for a prioritized list of capital improvements from facilities supervisor Jim Kenoyer. The board member suggested such a list could form the basis of a smaller bond that could be put on the same February ballot as the district's maintenance and operations levy.

Though no concrete decisions on if or when a new a bond would be put to voters have been made, Kenoyer is set to present that list to the school board tonight. Click here for a PDF of that list, which prioritizes capital improvement items for ballots in February 2012, February 2015 and an unspecified future date.

But why click when you can just continue reading? Below I've replicated the tables Kenoyer produced for the school board's review:

Area	Rationale	Cost	Running Total
HS Science Buildings	Most urgent academic needs on campus	$2.4 million	$2.4 million
HS Track	Track base coming apart, needs replacement after 25-year life span	$225,000	$2.625 million
HS Campus Lighting	Bringing old lighting up to knew federal regulations	$150,000	$2.775 million
Heating Units	Finish upgrades to middle school and Elementary School	$75,000	$2.9 million
Security Camera Upgrades	Current equipment aging	$100,000	$3 million
Total Projected		$3 million

 

Additional Items form Future Consideration

Area	Rationale
Pipeline Fields	Permanent restrooms have been a long-range need
Transportation	Highly limited space
Stadium	Current facility undersized and in need of    upgrades
Turf	Expanded use of the surface
Fire Systems Upgrades	Safety concern at some point in the future
Digital Controls Antiquated	Repairs are costly and ultimately the system becomes antiquated and needs to be replaced
Service Roads Resurfaced	Routine (long-term) maintenance
Parking Lots Resurfaced	Routine (long-term) maintenance