Regional News
Email
Print
Bond issue gets vocal
Alleghany vote on $7.5M plan set for Tuesday
ADVERTISEMENT
Published: March 9, 2008
SPARTA
Supporters of a $7.5 million school-bond package in Alleghany County have been making calls and writing letters that urge voters to back a plan to build the county's first middle school, saying it would ease crowding.
But opponents are firing back with a campaign against the school bonds, which would require a property-tax rate increase of 9 to 10 cents, about a 20 percent increase in this small, rural county.
The referendum will be Tuesday.
And school officials are watching the public battle play out in advertisements in the local paper. Last week, three doctors at a family practice in Sparta paid for a full-page ad in The Alleghany News in support of the bonds.
"I think there's no better place to spend your money than in educating children," said Dr. Jack Cahn, who paid for the ad with Dr. Maureen Murphy and Dr. Mary Digel.
Smaller ads placed by opponents pleaded for residents to vote no.
Dr. Mark Handy, who paid for one of the ads, said he thinks that Alleghany doesn't need a middle school and fears that if one opens, it wouldn't be much longer until one of the three elementary schools closed.
The middle school would for the first time bring all the Alleghany students in sixth, seventh and eighth grades together in one school. Some of the money would be spent on renovations to the auditorium at Sparta Elementary School and provide money to buy land at Glade Creek Elementary.
The Alleghany County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously in November to hold the referendum. The $7.5 million, along with interest, would be paid back over 20 years.
County officials scheduled a bond referendum in November 2006 for the middle school, but school officials called it off before voters went to the polls.
Some people said that the timing wasn't right for the referendum. Months earlier, county commissioners had increased the property-tax rate by 10 cents for every $100 of assessed value.
Then in early 2007, there was a revaluation, and some residents saw their property values double or triple. That revaluation was offset in part in June, when commissioners cut the property-tax rate from 70 cents to 43 cents.
This year, school officials focused on moving forward with a list of improvements to the county's high school and three elementary schools.
As talks continued on the renovations, the middle-school proposal came up again. Commissioners estimate that a new school would increase the school system's budget by $900,000 a year in additional operating costs.
If the school bonds are approved, a new middle school would open by fall 2009 on the same campus as Sparta Elementary.
The total enrollment at Alleghany County Schools is about 1,400. It is a small county with a small enrollment, said Clarence Crouse, the chairman of the board of education, which makes it difficult for the three elementary schools to organize for such activities as band.
■ Sherry Youngquist can
be reached in Mount Airy at
336-789-9338 or at syoungquist@wsjournal.com.
Email
Print
ADVERTISEMENT
N.C. Politics
Federal Politics
See community events or add your own! Click here!
Advertisement
