Somerville-specific referendum questions?

[rmd.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen anything about it except for a couple of yard signs, but I gather there's a question on the ballot about construction of a new High School. I didn't see a link to it on the city elections department page, and I haven't seen it discussed here. Anyone have info or opinions?

we don't have a tag for 'elections' or 'politics'? I'm surprised.

Comments

My opinions

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

The school building has problems and needs to either be repaired or rebuilt or lose accredidation.

Rebuilding vs. Repairing:
I think it's a good idea to rebuild. By rebuilding the school we get state money. If we just do the repairs to keep the school up to standards, we spend about half as much money, but we don't get a new school.

Tax Increase to pay for it:
I think it's a good idea. School improvements (including rebuilding k-8 schools) have generally been managed out of the general budget, but paying for the high school that way would really squeeze the budget and not leave money for other school building upkeep, just pushing the problem into the future.

RE: My opinions

[mattdm.livejournal.com]

> I think it's a good idea to rebuild. By rebuilding the school we get state money. If we just do the repairs to keep the school up to standards, we spend about half as much money, but we don't get a new school.

In fact, since we'll get about half the money to rebuild from the state, the local cost is the same either way, but one has a much better outcome.

Re: My opinions

[chenoameg.livejournal.com]

I thought the numbers were something like $70ml to repair, $130m of city money for the replacement? But I may have misremembered.