Madison Central Charges Admission to Vote?

Madison Central School District held the first of its scheduled early-voting sessions this week. One local basketball fan reports that, contrary to the spirit of the 24th Amendment, to vote at Tuesday night's boys' basketball game, one had to buy a five-dollar ticket for admission to the game.

According to my correspondent, the polling station was located in the concession area in the middle school lunchroom. During games, the only way to access that area is through the northwest entrance to the middle school, where the ticket table for the game was located. There was no sign at the ticket table announcing that voting was being conducted on the premises, and my correspondent received no advice at the ticket table that one could enter to vote without buying a ticket. The only public notice of the active polling came at halftime, when the PA announcer, Mike Materese, told the crowd that they could go vote for the MHS renovation project in the lunchroom.

The polling station was managed by Monica Campbell, executive director of the Madison Central Education Foundation, which stands to gain new office space in the renovated high school if the bond issue passes.

Now I'm having trouble pinning this down in statute, since our district seems to be winging it on election law on this early-voting scheme. But if election day rules apply to early-voting sessions, publishing a schedule of early-voting sites online and in the newspaper isn't enough. Let us turn to SDCL 12-14-14:

On election day a sign, with a minimum size of eleven inches by seventeen inches, shall be conspicuously displayed outside of the entrance to any building in which a polling place is located to clearly identify the building as a polling place.

If election law allows early voting, election law should hold early voting places to the same standards to protect voter rights as regular election day voting. Individuals should not have to purchase tickets to access a polling place. The polling place should be conspicuously announced by a sign at the entrance of the building.

By the way, as we consider spending millions of dollars to build a 2500-seat gym, my correspondent reports there were plenty of open seats in the current 1200-seat gym.

Web Spinning, Media in the Tank for MHS New Gym

Some statistics of interest, Web and otherwise:

• 245: hits received by the Madison Central New Gym/Renovation Project website since launched earlier this month. Superintendent Vince Schaefer crows about this popularity on the front page of last night's Madison Daily Leader.
• not mentioned: number of those hits coming from the Madville Times.
• 700: hits received by the Madville Times yesterday.
  
• 163: votes submitted to the Madville Times online poll on the school bond issue in one week.
  
• 109: views of MHS Tour Intro, the most popular of the 18 videos I shot and posted of the MHS facility tour last month.
• 60: views of MHS Locker Room Toilet, the second-most popular video of the MHS series.
• 17%: amount of $16.98-million bond issue projected for new gym.
• 75%: possible understatement of actual new gym cost.
  
• 0: individual components of plan that cost more than the new gym.
  
• 9: paragraphs you have to read through before encountering Chuck Clement's first use of the word gymnasium in last night's front-page 12-paragraph article on the project.
• 16: paragraphs you had to read through to find new gym in Clement's October 8 19-paragraph article on the project.
• 2: times Clement said "screw you" to me last March in response to my criticism of his journalism.
  

MHS Publishes Early Voting Schedule: No Tickets Required

I see the Madison Central School District has posted a list of absentee voting opportunities. Permit me to post the schedule hear in clean and simple text to spare you the trouble of clicking on the school's needlessly bandwidthy PDF:

Date	Event	Location	Time
12/20	Middle School band/choir concert	High School Auditorium	7:00 p.m.
12/21	Boys basketball	Cafeteria	4:45 p.m.
1/7	Girls basketball	Cafeteria	4:45 p.m.
1/10	Boys basketball	DSU Fieldhouse	4:45 p.m.
1/12	Open voting	Elementary Commons	12:45 p.m.
1/13	Girls basketball	DSU Fieldhouse	5:00 p.m.
1/15	Gymnastics	Cafeteria	Noon
1/17	Forum	Cafeteria	7:00 p.m. after Forum
1/18	Open voting	Elementary Commons	3:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
1/20	Boys basketball	DSU Fieldhouse	5:00 p.m.
1/21	Wrestling (Madison Square Garden)	Cafeteria	6:00 p.m.
1/25	Forum	Cafeteria	7:00 p.m. after Forum

Dang—I already missed a couple!

A couple things occurred to me last night about the school district's early-voting scheme. First, the school can't conduct early voting at a basketball game... or at least not on the other side of the ticket table. Suppose concerned citizens want to observe the voting, as they are entitled by state law to do. Suppose they're on a tight budget and can't afford a ticket to the basketball game. If school business manager and election officer Cindy Callies sets up a voting table on paid side of the ticket booth, she creates a barrier to poll watchers, not to mention potential voters.

There can be no price of admission to access any polling place. That's why, in the above schedule, the polling during high school games is listed at the cafeteria or the auditorium. But there still had better not be any electioneering near that voting table!

Note also that it's a bit tough to make to observe the polls when the school district doesn't include a closing time for its early polls. Keeping democracy honest is hard work, but on January 20th, for instance, it would be nice to know if voting will run for just an hour or if I should pack a snadwich and expect to be there for four hours.

Absent from the school's new gym/renovation information site is a list of workplaces that have requested early voting sessions. If any such sessions are scheduled, we should expect similar public notification.

Note, business owners, that if you invite Mrs. Callies to hold early voting at your business, you'll need to open your doors to any person who wants to come in and watch or even vote. That's our right. You can't call Mrs. Callies and say, "I have five employees who want to vote; please bring five ballots down." If folks on the street hear that you're conducting an early vote at your office, and they want to drop in and vote at that time as well, you have to let them in, and Mrs. Callies has to bring enough ballots for such a contingency.

The school district has already lost one supporter with its gaming of the vote. I hope the school will compensate for its questionable vote-stacking by keeping the process as transparent as possible.

Poll: MHS New Gym/Renovation Bond Issue Well Short of 60%

If Madville Times readers have anything to say about, the school will have a hard time passing its bond issue. In the latest Madville Times poll, I asked "How will you vote on Madison's $16.98 million new gym/high school renovation bond issue?" Your responses over the past week:

Yes	73 (44%)
No	74 (45%)
Still thinking	16 (9%)

Total Votes: 163

That's pretty tight, but given that it takes 60% to pass the bond issue, these numbers suggest the school district has some convincing to do.

Now of course, the margin of error for Madville Times polls is bigger than any gym MHS will ever have, so keep your grains of salt handy. For instance, back in September, my poll on the county commission race got the winners right, Pedersen and Wollmann, though in different order. On the other hand, my poll was way off on the local sheriff's race: the tie between Lurz and Wyatt wasn't too far off, but my vote totally underrepresented Sheriff Hartman's support.

But consider: I was off on the sheriff's race because I suspect my readership underrepresents the older crotchety crowd that likes the status quo. If my school bond poll underrepresents that crowd, then the bond issue is in real trouble.

Madison School Early-Vote Stacking Fine by Secretary of State

Vote now in the latest Madville Times poll:
How will you vote on Madison's $16.98 million new gym/high school renovation bond issue?
See right sidebar—poll closes Wed 8 a.m.!

Apparently my concerns about Madison Central School District's early-voting scheme are unfounded. Various Madville Times readers have contacted the Secretary of State's office to get the straight poop on whether our school district can...

1. deputize advocates of the school bond issue to hand out and collect absentee ballots,
2. conduct voting at basketball games and other school events, and
   
3. arrange early voting sites in workplaces at the request of employers.

According to Secretary of State Chris Nelson, all of the above are legit. One of my correspondents gets some more straight dope from Secretary Nelson's assistant, Kea Warne, whose responses to some specific questions about Madison's early-voting plans I summarize below:

1. Should Madison Central publish a list of early voting places and times? There is no statutory requirement for them to publish this document.
   
2. Will there be a voting booth to insure voter privacy? All voters (either voting in-person absentee or at the polling place on election day) must be provided a private area to vote (either voting booth or a table top voting booth).
   
3. What about folks wearing pro or con stickers/t-shirts at these school events? There cannot be any political material within 100 feet of any entrance to the location where absentee voting is being conducted.
   
4. How will poll watchers be arranged? Poll watchers have to be allowed to be present. A person who is wanting to be a poll watcher must identify themselves as such to the election board (on election day) or the business manager/staff conducting the absentee voting.

I still see problems here. Without a published list of early polling places, poll watchers can't find out where to go to observe the polling for irregularities. Whoever school business manager Cindy Callies deputizes to carry absentee ballots around town will need to carry a complete voter registration list and keep it synchronized with every other election deputy's roving list to ensure no one gets more than one ballot. We will also have a lot of ballots moving back and forth to different places in different pouches. The more moving parts to any system, the more chance there is for things to go wrong.

Workplace voting still strikes me as fertile ground for improper influence. When the boss waves a fistful of absentee ballots at employees on company time and says, "Hey! Who wants to vote for the school bond election right now?" there is bound to be some sense of pressure to vote.

And seriously: does anyone think it's fair to conduct a vote on a new gym in a gym while a basketball game is going on, while voters are surrounded by cheering fans clad in school colors? Madison High School is staging early voting at exactly those venues where they can implicitly say, "Look at the wonderful educational opportunities we provide for students. Can you really deny them a new gym and renovated classrooms?"

What's next? Should we allow Mike McDowell to invite the county auditor to ring absentee ballots to work for all of the Heartland employees the next time Senator Russell Olson runs for office? Should Scott Heidepriem get to arrange an early-voting site at his law office the next time he's on the ballot?

If that's just how the game is played, then so be it. But this early voting scheme is not about enfranchisement. It's about stacking the vote in the school's favor.

If incoming Secretary of State Jason Gant is worried about voter fraud, he should come to Madison to observe the most loosely conducted vote I've seen in this state.

Online Poll: Vote Now: MHS New Gym/Renovation!

Hey! Click through Twitter or your RSS reader and vote in the latest Madville Times poll. I'd like to know "How will you vote on Madison's $16.98 million new gym/high school renovation bond issue?"

As always, the Madville Times encourages educated voting. Learn more...

1. ...by taking the video tour filmed by yours truly on November 22;
2. ...by reading Madison High School's Renovation Project page;
3. ...by checking out the MHS Facility Project Facebook page;
4. ...and by browsing the best (and only!) local blog coverage of the project, including counterproposals from concerned citizens who are just as interested in boosting the quality of Madison education as anyone else.
   

Poll runs until Dec. 22, Wednesday morning breakfast time. Share the link with your fellow Madison Central School District registered voters and click now!

Madison Central Violating State Election Law?

The more I think about Madison Central School District's proposed early voting scheme, the more uneasy I get. Beyond creating the awkwardness of voting on a new gym while surrounded by maroon-clad Bulldog basketball fans, the school district may be arranging early-voting that violated state election law.

The school district is offering four means of early voting in the upcoming bond election (I quote verbatim from their PDF):

• By mail
• At the business manager’s office in the high school at 800 NE 9th St.
• At many events and community locations prior to the election.
• Anyone who wishes to have early voting conducted at their business for their employees can contact the business office at 256-7710 for more information.

Vote by mail? No problem.

Vote at the school business office? Probably not a problem.

Voting at a school event? Problem.

Voting arranged by bosses for employees at workplaces? Big problem.

First, the school offers no reliable list of early-voting polling places. When and where exactly are the school events where voting will be possible? Will Cindy Callies have ballots on hand at every public event at the school? Or will the school district only break out the ballots at sporting events when they see lots of backers of the 2007 new gym project? Will the school avoid setting up a voting booth at, say, the public one-act performance in January, where they might encounter a number of arts supporters who feel the current $16.98 million plan still puts too much emphasis on athletics over academics?

Same with community events: when and where? Given South Dakota's overwhelming concern with protecting the secret ballot, perhaps a concerned citizen would want to observe the balloting to ensure voters' rights are protected. How can a poll watcher keep track of the voting if the school is doing it in undisclosed locations?

Arranging voting sessions at employers' requests at workplaces smells bad, if not worse. State law entitles employees to two hours off work to vote. Letting bosses arrange in-house voting skirts that requirement (mark your circles, then back to work, slaves!). Worse, it opens the door for all sorts of workplace intimidation: Imagine the boss walking in, saying, "O.K., who wants a ballot to vote on the school bond issue?" and then conspicuously noting with a scowl those who don't take a ballot, presuming to exercise their right to vote in private.

And imagine, just imagine, that employer were Madison Central School District. Principal calls a staff meeting, says, "Hey everyone! Cindy's here so you can all vote!" and hands out ballots.

I don't think principals Knowlton, Koch, or Walsh would do such a foolish thing. I hope every boss in town is that prudent. If employees want to vote, employees can request their absentee ballots individually or come to the polls on their own, on official leave as permitted by state law. Their bosses should have no involvement in their voting.

I support early voting and absentee voting. I support government efforts to get more people to vote.

But I also support following the spirit and letter of election law to protect voter rights and ensure complete fairness. The Madison Central School District needs to clarify and likely scale back its early voting plan to ensure its compliance with election law.

And remember, fellow voters: no Bulldog jackets at the polls.

Statute relevant to early voting in the school bond election:

• SDCL 12-18-1 requires that "All voting at the polling place shall be in private voting booths or compartments and, except as provided in § 12-18-25, shall be screened from observation."
• SDCL 12-18-3 says that, at a polling place, no one may "display campaign posters, signs, or other campaign materials or by any like means solicit any votes for or against any person or political party or position on a question submitted or which may be submitted."
• SDCL 12-18-9.2 authorizes and requires election officials and the cops to remove any materials violating SDCL 12-18-3 and arrest anyone committing such violations.
  
• SDCL 12-18-9 dictates that "Any person, except a candidate who is on the ballot being voted on at that polling place, may be present at any polling place for the purpose of observing the voting process." Rather difficult to do unless the school publishes a complete list of places, dates, and times where the voting process is taking place.
  
• SDCL 12-19-2.1 has a couple of goodies on absentee ballots:
• To get an absentee ballot, you "may apply in person to the person in charge of the election." That means one person, Cindy Callies, can legally hand you an absentee ballot. KJAM is reporting Monica Campbell will have ballots; I'm still looking for the statute that authorizes an "election assistant" to distribute absentee ballots.
• A third party can deliver an absentee ballot is if the voter (a) is confined "because of sickness or disability," (b) applies in writing, and (c) designates an authorized messenger to carry the ballot.
  
• SDCL 12-19-7.2 makes it a Class 2 misdemeanor for any authorized messenger to, "in the presence of the voter at or before the time of voting, display campaign posters, signs, or other campaign materials or by any like means solicit any votes for or against any person, political party, or position on a question submitted."
• SDCL 12-1-2 says that all of these Title 12 provisions "apply to township, municipal, school, and other subdivision elections unless otherwise provided by the statutes specifically governing their elections or this title." I haven't found any exceptions for school bond elections in Title 13.
  
• SDCL 13-7-14 says "Absentee voting shall be permitted in school district elections, including school district bond elections. The school board, with the approval of the county auditor and board of county commissioners, may permit absentee ballots to be voted at the county auditor's office in the county of jurisdiction."

MHS Bond Issue Early Voting Open! But Don't Wear Your Bulldog Jacket....

KJAM reports that early voting has begun in the $16.98-million new gym and high school renovation bond issue placed before us by the Madison Central School District. (Worth noting: one of KJAM's main media personalities, Matt Groce, is also leading a committee advocating passage of the Madison Central school bond issue.) The early voting information is also available (in annoyingly unnecessary PDF format) on the Madison K-12 website. (Who at MHS seriously thinks it's easier to publish a simple text notice as a PDF? What are you teaching those kids?)

The school is going to great lengths to make voting as convenient as possible. You can vote by mail or by dropping in to business manager Cindy Callies's office at the high school. Callies and Madison Education Foundation exec Monica Campbell will also have ballots handy "at many events and community locations prior to the election." Callies will even arrange to bring ballots to your place of employment so you can get all of your employees to vote.

Wait a minute. I'm all for universal enfranchisement. I'm all for absentee ballots. But voting at "school events" and other "community locations"? How do we arrange poll-watchers for this kind of everywhere, anytime voting?

This activity falls safely within the rules for absentee voting. I know in 2008 when I was out walking for Obama and other Dems, we could offer to deliver absentee ballots for interested voters.... Update: but as I review the Secretary of State's guidelines on absentee balloting, I am reminded that the only time we did that was in case of voters who were homebound by sickness or disability who would authorize a messenger in writing to convey their ballots.

But if the school district is organizing voting at events and workplaces, the school might want to take a look at SDCL 12-18-3, which governs electioneering and other conduct at polling places:

12-18-3. Electioneering, offices, distracting communications devices, and signature gathering prohibited near polling place--Violation as misdemeanor. Except for sample ballots and materials and supplies necessary for the conduct of the election, no person may, in any polling place or within or on any building in which a polling place is located or within one hundred feet from any entrance leading into a polling place, maintain an office or public address system, or use any communication or photographic device in a manner which repeatedly distracts, interrupts, or intimidates any voter or election worker, or display campaign posters, signs, or other campaign materials or by any like means solicit any votes for or against any person or political party or position on a question submitted or which may be submitted. No person may engage in any practice which interferes with the voter's free access to the polls or disrupts the administration of the polling place, or conduct any petition signature gathering, on the day of an election within one hundred feet of a polling place. A violation of this section is a Class 2 misdemeanor.

Read more relevant statute and cause for concern about Madison Central's early-voting scheme in my follow-up post on this topic.

I know the county courthouse takes the sanctity of the polling place seriously. I walked into the auditor's office once with a campaign t-shirt on. Absentee voting was going on in the office next door. The gals in the auditor's office immediately told me I had to cover up that shirt.

If the school district intends to establish polling places at concerts, ball games, and various workplaces around town, they had better ensure the integrity of the vote. If the school district is handing out ballots for people to mark at basketball games, they had better be on the P.A. system before the game alerting everyone that state law prohibits any discussion of the school bond election, pro or con.

Arguably, the school may have to ban Bulldog jackets, buttons, and signs at school events where voting is offered. If the "Vote Yes for MHS Committee" adopts any MHS logos or slogan for its campaign, if they adopt school colors maroon and gold for their advertising, then the presence of such school paraphernalia at polling places could well qualify as electioneering that could sway votes.

Open voting is great, but the school will need to work to assure the public its rolling polling places satisfy South Dakota election law.

------------------------------
Possibly related: I learn from Monica Campbell that Jon Hunter is getting into webcasting with live streaming video from Madison Bulldog home basketball games on the MDL website, starting Thursday night. No word yet on whether the school district has designed an accompanying Web widget that will let listeners vote on the bond issue electronically.

New Gyms Sprout in Smaller Schools

The Madison Central School District may face some challenges justifying building a new gym when it is faced with the prospect of making up a 5% cut in state aid to education. Asking local voters to make up another $275K in the annual budget might require giving up the $2.9 million the district says the new gym will cost.

Then again, if we're being quoted $2.9 million for a 40,000-square-foot facility with a 2500-seat gym, we might want to run with that bargain. Shopping around the neighborhood, I learn Wolsey-Wessington just built a new gym that cost $2.2 million. As a Class B gym, I would expect it is markedly smaller seat-wise than Madison's proposed arena. Highmore-Harrold just built a new gym, too. Superintendent Frank Palleria says that facility has just 300 seats. (Palleria, a former Madison super, also tells me a new gym for Madison is "long overdue.").

So $2.7 million gets Highmore-Harrold 300 seats, but $2.9 million will get Madison 2500 seats? I remain skeptical of the numbers we're getting locally.

Update 15:49 CST: I learn from MDL that my friends Matt and Penni Groce are holding an organizational meeting for the new "Vote Yes for MHS Committee" tonight at 7 at the MHS lunchroom.

Metrodome Joins Vikings in Collapse

Holy cow! The Metrodome collapsed!

Hubert H. Humphrey Metrobowl, Minneapolis. The inflatable roof collapsed due to the weight of snow from this weekend's blizzard, which had dumped 17 inches on Minneapolis by Saturday evening. Image from KARE TV via CNN.

I say get out the utility knives, remove that roof, and play real football ball in the snow! Or just leave the roof where it is, rig up some ski-lifts, and let the kids sled in the Hubert H. Humphrey Snow Bowl all winter.

Madison New Gym Actually Over $5 Million?

In response to my post questioning the $2.9 million price tag cited by the Madison school district for its proposed new gym, I get the following comment on my KELO blog from Tim S.:

As a Construction Project Manager/Estimator if I were to put a conceptional estimate number to a 42,500SF Gymnasium for this area of the country the costs would probably be somewhere around $121.39 per SF = $5,159,075.

In the current bidding market we have seen most public projects coming in at an average of 20% less than the anticipated cost estimates, so if that holds true the cost could be reduced to around $4,127,260. Most of the time they can get creative with cost estimates by not including certain things or by creating lots of alternate bid items to achieve their end means. Not being able to see the full breakdown it is possible that the 2.9 million is for just the gym area alone and does not include other supporting areas. Estimates are always just educated guesses and the more information available the better you end number will be.

Just My Two Cents.

Two cents... which by Madison math would actually be four cents?

Madison New Gym: Bigger than 2007 Proposal, Half the Cost?

Remember that new gym proposal Madison voters turned down back in 2007? Recall the plans for that building:

2007 New Gym Site Plan (click to enlarge)

2007 New Gym Floor Plan (click to enlarge)

The new gym proposed in 2007 was a 42,400-square foot facility. It included a 25,572-square-foot main gym with 2170 spectator seats. It also offered over 4000 square feet of lobby, a concession stand, restrooms, locker rooms, storage, and a nice press box upstairs. Total cost: $5.83 million. Add interest, estimated at the time at 4.5%, and supporters said the project would cost $391,000 in debt service each year for 25 years, a total of $9.78 million.

Now, let's look at the current new gym plan:

2011 New Gym/HS Renovation Site Plan (click to enlarge)

2011 New Gym Floor Plan (click to enlarge)

These new diagrams don't show square footage. The school district says the total project will add 62,000 square feet. Eyeballing the above images, I see the footprint of the 2011 new gym corresponds roughly with the 2007 plan. That suggests that the new athletic facility accounts for over two thirds of the new space.

During last week's tour, MHS principal Sharon Knowlton said the new gym would seat 2500 people. The plan shows four locker rooms, nice curvy lobby, concession stand, public restrooms, clothing store, storage, and fitness center.

The 2011 new gym looks at least as fancy as the 2007 new gym. Yet the school district tells us the gym will cost us $2.9 million, half the cost of the facility proposed in 2007.

I see two logical conclusions:

1. Prices for building gyms have gone down significantly since the 2007 proposal.
2. The new sports facility is taking up a lot more of the proposed $16.9 million than the $2.9 million our school leaders are telling us it will cost.
   

Architects, care to comment?

Guest Column: Axe New Gym, Spend $10M on MHS Needs, Not Wants

When I toured my alma mater last week, Madison High School principal Sharon Knowlton said more than once that the proposed $16.9-million new gym and renovation project is the only way to accomplish all of the architectural changes the high school needs.

Orland organic farmer Charlie Johnson begs to differ. Below is his commentary, which appeared in last night's print MDL:

First of all, let us provide a few facts before the discussion. A bond issuance is collateralized by the taxable value of real estate within the taxing entity. There is no deferment for cases of unemployment, poor crop years, declining income, sour economy, etc. The bond commitment is for 25 years. Most home mortgages taken out today do not extend out that far. A $16.9 Million bond issue averages about 48,000 per MHS student (16.9 million /350). For every registered voter in Madison school district, the average commitment is $2600 (16.9 million/6500).

By estimation, property tax levies will increase 11.3% (2/11.3) on bare agricultural land in Orland Township. The increase just on school levy will be 26.5% (2/9.1). For an owner occupied home in Madison the increase in levies will be 9.7% (2/20.6). The increase in school levy will be 21.9% (2/9.1). These percentages could change slightly in future years as property valuations fluctuate and tax requests by all entities change. It would be an accurate statement to say that property tax increases will be anywhere from 8% to 20%-perhaps more. The impact will vary from agricultural land to commercial to residential. The same can be expected for property located within Madison versus property in one of the townships. Keep in mind also the capital outlay fund and levy (3 mills) is committed in large part for 12 more years to pay for the recently built elementary school.

A former friend and county commissioner, Bud Giles, on many occasions pointed out that there is a difference between wants and needs. He stressed also there was importance to know the difference. Elected officials have the responsibility to aggressively address the needs while prioritizing wants as time and resources become available. Like most projects, the MHS facility project is a combination of wants and needs. We need to provide safety and function of the school building by improving lighting, ventilation, wiring, plumbing, and other upgrades. We want to improve programs by relocating and expanding rooms, adding additions, and building a new gym. There is no excuse for failing to take care of needs. There is nothing wrong inherently wrong in bringing discussion to a well planned, prioritized list of wants. Reality is that you have the money. Never should accumulating wants be placed on top of needs in an attempt to justify the latter.

Within this sobering commentary, I offer a 4 part recommendation to the MHS facility project.

1. $16.9 million is too high and unrealistic. Cap the bond issue at $10 million. Even at that figure, we are doubling up on debt for the school district. Is it prudent for the district to implement a financial step that most households and businesses would not consider? If the facility project carries on a higher figure, it must do so with private money or other sources.
2. Regardless of how the bond issue is decided, take the responsible steps to provide safety and function of the building by taking care of the upgrades that are needed. Many of the voters who opposed the spectator gym in 2007 felt the need for improvements at MHS was more important.
3. In the area of wants, consider a fine arts annex to provide more room for band and chorus. Do not destroy a perfectly good wooden floor gym as a spiraling attempt to justify a new spectator gym. Adult recreation programs use the present gym space extensively. Providing practice times for all sports at all grade levels, boys and girls is a premium and plus for proper programming. Eliminating a fantastic gym floor is wrong regardless of whether a spectator gym is built or not.
4. The spectator gym is a definite want and should be funded with other sources. Supporters of a spectator gym may want to consider a partnership with the city of Madison to develop a vision of a true events center that will attract and cater to events throughout the year.

Regardless of the outcome of the bond issue, the sad commentary is that education as a whole will continue to suffer as funding levels fail to provide enough money for adequate salaries and resources for our educators. We are asking an 18th century tax system to provide for 21st century education and it is failing miserably. If only persons eligible under the times in the 18th century were allowed to vote on the facility project bond issue, the bond issue in Madison would be decided by whites who were male and property owners. How about that for progress?

Sincerely,
Charlie Johnson
Madison,SD

Take the Madison High School Tour... from Your Computer!

I walked through Madison High School for the probably the two-thousandth time yesterday afternoon. This time, however, I took the official tour that our school district is offering to convince the public of the need for the $16.9-million construction and renovation project, which we get to vote on February 1.

Principal Sharon Knowlton wants to take at least 1000 voters on the tour before we vote. Her thought is that with 6500 registered voters in the district, if a thousand people can see (and smell) the condition of the building, and if those thousand each talk about the tour with three of their friends, those people will guarantee the necessary 60% yes vote on February 1.

Our group yesterday brought the tour tally to around 365. In the interest of boosting that number faster (and because the Madville Times is all about education and public service), here is the complete tour, as I recorded it yesterday:

Introduction:


Art Room:


Home Ec Room:


Home Ec Part 2:


Library:


Geometry Room:


North Entrance:


Utility Room:


The John:


Hall Lockers and Storage Room:


Special Ed Room:


Choir Room:


Biology Lab:


Boys' Locker Room Toilet:


Boys' Locker Room:


Showers:


High School Gym:


Construction Plan:


Tour Wrap-Up:

MHS Puts New Gym Plans on Facebook

The Madison Central School District is finally taking my advice and adopting interactive Web tools to market its message. The district has put up a Facebook page on the "Facility Project."

Obviously Darin Namken is keeping his vow not to get involved with any new push for a new gym: if he were involved, he'd have gotten his Bulldog Media employees to storm up a fancier name than "Facility Project." Building a Bulldog Future!... Jump for the Gym!

The site includes the bullet list of costs you see in the image at right (click to enlarge!). $2.9 million for the gym, $2.5 million for fine arts. We see there in plain numbers the traditional misprioritization of putting athletics over the arts. We appear to be spending more on a new gym we don't need than on any other item in the project. Boy, we could make those other improvements a lot better if we just skipped the gym and diverted those funds to a nicer theater, better science equipment, a dedicated debate room (we used to have one, until the mid 1990s, when computers took over)....

My neighbor Charlie Johnson does some quick math: $16.9 million for 360 high school students... that's just under $47,000 per student. Make of that figure what you will.

The architect drawings do show the new classrooms the project will bring. Boy, all those new rooms would make it even easier to host a big event like a debate tournament. Hmm....

...Meanwhile, West Central is spending $4 million on a new 2100-seat gym. As my esteemed MHS literature teacher and classicist Martin Connor said, you can tell a society's greatest priorities by looking for its largest buildings. Our grand temples to athletics affirm the jockocracy.

New Gym? How About New Fine Arts Building...

...and an Events Center at 34 and 81?

There's nothing like the prospect of raising folks' property taxes by hundreds of dollars to get the creative juices flowing. I've proposed my alternative construction and school schedule to save Madison Central School District taxpayers millions of dollars and avoid the need to build a new high school gym. My neighbor Gerry Lange sees philanthropy as a better funding source than a tax hike in a shaky economy.

Now neighbor Charlie Johnson offers another alternative that strikes my fancy: demonstrate our educational priorities by skipping the new gym and building a fine arts annex:

In the whole scheme of things, why don’t we just build a brand new fine arts annex to the west side of the high at a fraction of the cost of the plan proposed. Then leave the present PE gym in the high school as is with some updates to the locker rooms. The way it is now we are using music and band as pawns to tear out gym space so we can justify 8 million plus for alumni basketball seating.

Charlie hits the nail on the head. Our school district has concocted a deliberately complicated architectural shell game, removing an entirely practical phys ed and athletic practice space, shoehorning a complex of classrooms and performance space into it, and thus making it seem that we just have to build another sports space. This is semi-blackmail: give us our new gym, or we'll say you killed the new facilities for music and theater!

If we're determined to build new space, why not keep the old high school gym for the purpose it serves and build new arts space from scratch to better meet our students educational needs?

Charlie isn't wholly against building a new gym. He just thinks our school tax dollars ought to focus on schooling, not varsity sports and bigger bleachers. He thinks an events center would be a fine development for Madison, but that such a facility ought to be a joint project of the city, college, and private donors, with the school district chipping in to rent the space for occasional big games. There's even a great spot for such an event center, right on the corner of Highways 81 and 34.

Think of it: instead of tucking a big events facility away in northeast Madison, in the middle of a residential neighborhood where basketball parking and traffic clogs neighborhood streets, we could have a spectacular events center right on the highway, where everyone who comes through Madison will see it. Now there's a sports facility I could get behind.

Lange: Local Philanthropy Could Ease Taxpayer Burden on School Bond Issue

There's a trend afoot in the South Dakota blogosphere toward group blogging. Not here! (I'm just bad at delegating.)

But I am happy to present the occasional guest column. Today, my neighbor and outgoing State Representative Gerry Lange takes a crack at the school bond issue here in Madison.

Letter to the Editor, Nov. 9, 2010, by Gerry Lange

The “full-court press” is on to “sell” the public on investing 17 million in a new gym and much-needed renovations at the high school. This is necessary in order to provide the first-class education that will attract young entrepreneurs into our community. I think most people understand this. What they don’t understand is why the total burden has to be loaded on property taxes, already plenty high.

A quick check at the courthouse before the last bond proposal enlightened me to the fact that land-owners and other businessmen with high valuations will pay way more than main street professional and business people whose buildings are valued much lower.

The last legislature tried to remedy the vast discrepancies in land valuations across the state by going to a “productivity” basis. It remains highly controversial, especially the provision to change the way grasslands are treated. The net effect sounds suspiciously like an income tax. The head of the Chamber came unglued when I brought this up at a meeting at the capitol during the last session.

Truly, if every piece of realestate paid according to “productivity,” then we would be back to Adam Smith’s 1776 advice that taxes be collected according to ability to pay.

Totally engrained in our present tax philosophy is that we must “look out for number one” and just vote NO. Every successful politician will tell you so!

On a brighter note, there is a model alternative to taxation. T. Denny Sanford, Buffet, and Gates provide good examples of how to fund worthy causes. Our own community is loaded with folks whose lifestyles wouldn’t change at all after a hundred thousand or even a million-dollar gift to the school foundation. It’s strictly a question of values. Interestingly, there’s a book out there that explains how happy you can be by sharing your resources with worthy causes. So bottom line: act to look out for number one! But in a more enlightened fashion.

Chuck Clement, MDL, Continue to Run Interference for Big Spending Madison School Board

The propaganda from Chuck Clement and the Madison Daily Leader on behalf of the Madison Central School District continues. In previous coverage of our school board's proposal to build a new gym and renovate the high school, MDL has buried mention of key terms like new gym. Now Clement's coverage of the school board's approval of a public vote on $16.98 million shows more propaganda by positioning.

Madison Central business manager Cindy Callies guesses the new gym and high school renovation will cost taxpayers $2 per $1000 of property value. If you own a $150,000 house, that's $300. Farmers stand to pay an average $411 more per quarter section.

One would think that financial data would be top priority information for most readers and taxpayers. One would thus think the journalistic urge would be to place that information at the top of the story.

But what journalistic choice does the local booster paper make? We hear first that the school approved the $16.98 million bond issue (good). Paragraph 2 says we vote on Feb. 1 (good). Then paragraph 3 reports this vital news: "No person attended the school board meeting to speak for or against the resolution or ask questions of the school board members or district administrators."

Translation: None of you showed up to complain or ask questions, so you have no right to vote against what we want.

The specific cost information doesn't come until paragraph 6. In traditional journalistic terms, the placement of details in this story says it's more important for the Madison Daily Leader to continue its function as propaganda organ for the school district and create the impression of lack of opposition than it is to report on the specific details of the proposal that voters must study and decide on February 1.

I'll be attending a school tour in the coming weeks, even though I already know the building and its physical needs from years of experience. I'll be recording and reporting on my tour. And I'll be advocating the position that I've already formed: I'll support the bond issue when they drop the unnecessary multi-million-dollar new gym.

My coverage of this bond election will be fully biased and subjective. At least I can admit that. I look forward to the day when Chuck Clement and the Madison Daily Leader will admit the same.

$14 Million for Education Improvements? Yes! $2.9 Million for Luxury Gym? No.

The Madison Central School Board meets Monday night. The marquee item on the agenda: setting February 1, 2011, as the date for a public vote on a $16,975,000 bond issue to renovate the high school and build a new gym. Inside word on the cost of the new gym: $2.9 million.

Nice to see the school has found a way to reduce the price tag from previous gym proposals. But that's still $2.9 million we can save by focusing on the real educational improvements first.

The new gym remains unnecessary. We have numerous athletic facilities—middle school gym, community center, DSU fieldhouse, downtown armory—where our kids can get all sorts of physical activity. Cut that $2.9 million from this proposal, direct it toward making the educational improvements even better, and you'll have my vote on February 1.

Hey, Bjorklund, 9-12ers! Get Real, Shift Focus to Lake County Politics

Consider this post an open letter to the local Glenn Beck club, the 9-12 Project. Their candidates for public office, Jason Bjorklund here in Madison and Steve Sibson down in Mitchell, both came in last in their respective races. I am mildly alarmed that two know-nothing conservative talk-radio karaoke speechifiers can get one in five of my neighbors to vote for them... but one in five still doesn't make me feel surrounded.

Now that I've thoroughly insulted the Glenn Beck club, I want to invite them to practical political action. Instead of being a rather harsh caricature of Toastmasters with a topic list limited to guns, the President's birth certificate, full-reserve banking, and Marxism, Jason Bjorklund and his snarling pack of poli-sci-yenas have a golden opportunity to reverse their general election failure and re-assert their relevance to real politics by getting involved in local issues.

Lake County is fertile ground for a group of citizens interested in graduating from mere talk to practical civic action. We have a range of big issues just waiting for local citizens to get up and holler:

1. On Tuesday, November 9, at 7 p.m., the Lake County Commission will hold its first public hearing on the proposed revision of the county zoning ordinance. The proposed changes raised a number of sparky questions at last week's candidates' forum. The proposed changes will also lay the roadmap for the work of the new zoning and environmental inspector the county will hire in the coming months. The county contends that the zoning revision is meant to make the ordinance more user-friendly. The Winfred freedom fighters and other folks I talk to see the zoning ordinance creating all sorts of local government intrusion into our lives. 9-12ers, you should be meeting and hosting open educational sessions to analyze the zoning ordinance for signs of tyranny that you can fight right here in our backyards.
2. The Madison Central School District is pushing a colossal waste of local tax dollars on a multi-million-dollar luxury gym to satisfy the interests of a few elite basketball players and sports fans. There are practical alternatives to this boondoggle that would save the taxpayers millions. Jason Bjorklund has declared himself a "victim" of Madison's public education system. Here's a perfect chance for him to lead his fellow citizens in focusing our dollars on real educational improvements, not more play space for varsity athletes.
3. The Lake Area Improvement Corporation continues to receive and spend thousands of local tax dollars without any real accountability to the public. The LAIC pays its director over $100,000 to bestow favors on the powers that be and shut out broad public participation while failing to meet its own anemic job creation goals. The 9-12 Project is the perfect group to catalyze public dissatisfaction with this star chamber of crony capitalism to advocate for real change to more open and participatory economic development.
   

The local Glenn Beck club showed signs of civic usefulness last spring when it brought more statewide candidates to visit with Madison voters than did any other civic organization, my benighted Democratic Party included. They slid back during Mr. Bjorklund's largely irrelevant campaign. Real Lake County politics offers a chance for redemption. Drop the talk of guns and Obama and tyranny in Washington. Turn your attention to regulation, taxation, government waste and cronyism right here on Washington Avenue and throughout Madison and Lake County.

Toward that end, I offer my services. Mr. Bjorklund, I am willing to be the featured speaker at your next 9-12 Project meeting. If you will invite me, I will come lead a conversation with your members about applying your Nine Principles and Twelve Values to local politics.

And don't forget, Glenn Beckers: there are elections for city commission and school board coming up in the spring. Let Kristi Noem carry your water against President Obama: think about making a difference for your neighbors right here in Lake County.