Education
Melba School Bond Bashed
April 5, 2007 
By DON HAMILTON
On March 16th a few of Melba’s voters, by an almost fourteen percent margin, passed a $300,000 supplemental school bond. This levy was said to be needed because Melba’s current $200,000 levy expires this year. It is also claimed that there has been an almost ten percent increase of new students this term.
Prior to the election, Mr. Norm Hogg, the school district business manager, released his calculations for the new levy His figures for the proposed levy showed a rate of $4.76 per $1000 of assessed property value. The current $200,000 levy is assessed at a rate of $5.41 per $1000. Why not vote for this great measure? After all, according to a prominent PUBLIC EMPLOYEE, the new levy would CUT our property taxes!
Apparently Mr. Hogg’s initial guess was wrong. He was not then prepared to publicize a realistic levy rate. On 28 Mar, almost two weeks AFTER the new levy passed a new WAG was released. The new rate can’t really be determined and set until next fall. . . “After the September property values are known.” According to Hogg, the real rate “may be” $5.81 (or more.)
It seems that levy bond voters, at least my wife and I, received an after the act post card thanking us for participating in this pig in a poke exercise. “Sure, we can afford a “Thank you” card on your dime AFTER we have misled you but we can’t afford to notify you of a pending election. Such extravagances are too expensive for us to notify you about a pending vote but after we have sold you that sick pig, we can at least say thanks.”
Does this PsyOps victory remind anyone else of the blitzkrieg of speculation, half truths and blatant propaganda currently bombarding us for a local “Community College?”
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Apr 5, 2007, 4:37 pm
How about the one on the highway funds borrowing?
Apr 9, 2007, 11:03 am
It is the duty of every person that would like to stop sprawl to vote “No” on school bonds.
Everyone in Boise City area of impact, but Meridian School District, get ready for another bond to pay for “private” schools in subdivisions. More money than brains. I wonder if the office of the City Sycophants even know that the area of impact is more than tax revenue and is more like the area of impact of jet airliner excrement. Although, perception is that the City limits only extends just past the Taco Bell Arena.
Apr 12, 2007, 12:29 pm
I remember attending a school board meeting back in the 70’s. Under discussion was the lack of schools out in the “09’s – as in 83709, which was a developing area at that time. The crabby old school board president advised us that Realtors were being told to tell clients that there were no schools out there. The audience exploded with laughter, which made the woman mad as hell.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.