Letter: There’s no doubt: Bond plan deserves a no vote

Published 6:42 am Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Some School Bond supporters are impressed with the projected savings of $500,000 per year, if we build a single new school in Ilwaco, for all elementary students.

At the projected interest rate of 3% over the life of a 25-year loan and a projected cost of $48 million for a new school, we will spend more than $20,286,000 in interest, alone. That means we will be spending well over $800,000 per year in interest, to save $500,000. Why am I not impressed?

Given the district’s apparent inability to maintain buildings, it’s a fair guess that they will be coming back to us, in 25 years, with some other big new plan.

If we double the figure, and test the $500,000 in savings against the entire bond proposal of $96 million, we will be spending over $40,500,000 in interest — over $1.6 million per year — to save $500,000. I don’t care what kind of new math you throw at these numbers, they don’t add up!

Now, imagine this: We take a much smaller chunk of money and we build large tsunami escape towers in Long Beach and Ocean Park, adjacent to schools. (According to tsunami experts, towers such as this are the only real protection we have against a catastrophic earthquake event.) Reassurance for tourists, residents and our kids. A far more welcoming gesture than a “Tsunami Evacuation Route” sign. As opposed to spending $40 million to save $12,500,000: is there any doubt as to where our money is best spent?

The latest argument is that the committee members invested their time in coming up with this plan, and we dishonor them by rejecting their “hard” work. Really? Imagine that the roughly 25 members of the committee invested a 100 hours each on this project, which is an exaggeration, I am sure.

That’s 2,500 hours. Divide that into $96 million and that’s about $38,000 an hour. I’m sorry, I respect people that invest their time in community service. But I am not obligated to endorse whatever plan they come up with, just because they invested their time.

Vote for schools. Vote no on this bond proposal.

DALE HILL

Ocean Park