School, Town Aren't Separate says Versteeg

This article was written by Keith Brake, and can be found at http://www.clowniniowa.com/:

School, town aren't separate: Versteeg


Aug. 24, 2010

On the one hand, there's the school.

On the other, there's the community.

Whoops, not any more, says Dave Versteeg.

"We're not separate entities," Montezuma's school superintendent told about 35 members of the Montezuma Lions Club on Monday evening, Aug. 23.

"The livelihood of the community is the school and the livelihood of the school is the community."

Versteeg had been asked to talk to the Lions about the school election on Sept. 14, in which voters will decide whether to approve $11.5 million in bonding to remodel the school.

Most Montezuma Lions members are well beyond child-bearing age. That kind of audience is sometimes not in favor of projects that will raise property tax bills. Versteeg opened the floor for questions after his talk, but other than queries about the necessity for some improvements and the cost, he encountered a mostly quiet audience.

Versteeg gave a history about how the board arrived at its decision to ask for the election.

"We're trying to be visionary about this," Versteeg said. "Our teachers are good. And it's not the education you or even I went through," he said. "We are charged now with getting kids into college."

"Our problem is the building and not all of it is bad," the superintendent said. "It's the guts of the 1928 building that are bad."

"We want to do this right and not have to come back during the next five to 20 years to do it again," said Versteeg.

"If there were no school here, you're still going to be in a school district," Versteeg said.

"But you would lose some control of that school. And all of our neighboring school districts have higher tax rates."

Versteeg said that with no school in town, "property tax rates will drop, but then your community isn't as marketable."

"People aren't going to live in a town just because their family lived here 40 years ago," Versteeg said. "It's a competitive environment."

"If you do lose your school, studies show it's a slow death for your town."

An audience member said he didn't believe there weren't enough specifics about the work proposed to be done, but Versteeg asked for specifiics and referred the questioner to a green flyer that lists costs. "It's about as specifiic as we felt we could get," the superintendent said.

Asked if architect's fees were figured in to the final cost estimates, Versteeg said they were. "They're five percent," he said.

"We have seven new teachers this year," Versteeg said. "All want to live here. Some couldn't find what they were looking for in housing, which is another area we need to get going on."

"We need families with kids," Versteeg said.