Letter to the Editor

Questions about school millage vote

As we approach Sept. 16, the day we will be voting on the school millage bill, let me just pose a few more questions on the issues being discussed.

It seems the No. 1 issue is whether Bella Vista needs a school on its west side. Sure, I think we all agree it isn't needed tomorrow, but Rome wasn't built in a day and neither can a school be built that quickly. We can wait until the school is sorely needed and donated land for it is gone.

Besides having to build the school, someone has to provide the land; then watch the costs go sky-high. The alternative is to plan for it now, knowing it would be 2016 before it could be completed.

Hope Duke, a spokeswoman for a group opposing passage of the millage bill, quotes the figure $1.4 million as being on hand to be spent on needed improvements. As an individual, I would love to have $1.4 million in my bank account; but for a school district, that is a drop in the bucket and could disappear as fast as the next rain storm.

When 2013 enrollment figures Hope uses are compared to 2006, is it merely a coincidence that Cooper Elementary on Bella Vista's east side opened in 2007?

The suggestion to add more buses and drivers would, of course, somewhat curtail the problem of long rides. That's a good point, but how many have considered the cost of buying and operating the buses. And what will happen to all those extra buses when the time comes to build a new school? Seems like money flushed down the drain. And where are the funds to purchase buses and hire their drivers?

We hear the argument about taxes going up; of course they will, but the amount is so small it should not hurt any of us and the future of our children and community are certainly worth a few dollars a month.

Someone mentioned living in the Highlands and not minding their first grader riding a bus to Gravette. Fine, but depending on where you live in the Highlands, the ride might not be that bad compared to what kids living off Lancashire are facing. The same person mentioned plans to hire more teachers. Of course, this is speculation since a new school is at least two years away.

There are arguments and most on both sides are legitimate. There is one argument I see that makes sense in considering a "No" vote: the new school's location. We must remember that the land was donated. We don't always get things just the way we like.

Please keep an objective view, weight the pros and cons, and vote sensibly. Do not take this lightly. I see a pattern here that isn't good.

I see it as a Bella Vista versus Gravette disagreement. This is a generalization, of course, as there are some in Bella Vista who oppose the millage and some in Gravette who support it.

Nita McKelvey

Bella Vista

Editorial on 09/10/2014