If you listened to the city commission candidates forum Tuesday night, you heard incumbents Scott Delzer and Dick Ericsson put the kabosh on talk of spending city dollars on a new gym for Madison High School. Last night's Madison Daily Leader summarizes those kaboshings:
At Tuesday night's candidate forum, Madison residents asked about the possibility of the city providing funding for renovations and new construction at Madison High School. City Commissioners Scott Delzer and Dick Ericsson, both running for re-election, answered the question about possible city funding for the school district's capital-outlay project with doubts that Madison could provide the money for public schools.
"Do I support the school? Absolutely," Delzer said. However, he added that the city doesn't have large amounts of money to spend on new projects or facilities.
Delzer said city officials have responsibilities to manage Madison's current capital assets such as parks, water and sewer systems and electrical grid. In addition, one of his goals as a city commissioner involved reducing the amount of money the city had to spend out of its reserves to balance the municipal budget "and live within its means."
...Commissioner Dick Ericsson told the audience that Madison's ability to issue bonds to finance any capital projects was "maxed out."
"We've got these obligations," Ericsson said, noting that second-penny revenue was currently dedicated to the city's own infrastructure programs [Chuck Clement, "Second-penny Funds Doubtful for High School Renovation," Madison Daily Leader, 2011.04.07].
Hmm... don't have large amounts of money, live within our means, other obligations.... Please tell me how these comments from our respected city commissioners at all differ from things that nice folks like Neal and Linda McIntyre have been saying about why the school's $16.98 million new gym an renovation is just too much for taxpayers to bear right now. I assume supporters of the new gym plan are Tweeting right now that Scott Delzer obviously doesn't care about education and that he and Dick Ericsson should look our students in the eye and tell them why the city commission doesn't care about their school.
Commissioners Delzer and Ericsson are saying that one can support the schools but still not be able to support everything the school board proposes to spend money on. That sounds perfectly logical when Delzer and Ericsson say it. It also sounds perfectly reasonable when Linda McIntyre, or Shawn Miller, or John Hess, or Cory Heidelberger says it.
Bonus Bureaucratic Baloney: Clement asked Mayor Gene Hexom to chime in on the issue. The mayor declined:
Earlier this week, Mayor Gene Hexom said that the Madison Central School District had made no official request for city funding. Hexom added that he could make no comment on the subject until a request was made [Clement, 2011.04.07].
Come on, Gene. Yes, you can comment! You just don't want to. Chuck isn't asking you to reveal our military strategy for invading Rutland. Dick and Scott didn't back away from making their thinking on an important public issue clear. Show some imagination; embrace the hypothetical!