Bond's failure changes plans

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigfork Eagle

Bigfork High School will have to do for now.

In the second mail-in bond election in six months, voters again denied the $11.1 million bond to renovate and add to BHS in an election that saw 51 percent voter response.

The school board had decided to come back to voters as soon as possible after the issue failed by only 84 votes in October. At that time, many board members and some involved parents indicated that there was much confusion surrounding the bond and some of the attached issues, including cost to homeowners and the proposed joint community/high school library.

This time the bond failed by 249 votes with a slightly larger pool of voters.

Leading up to the most recent vote, a group of parents, headed by Mary Knoll, formed a group called Bigfork Citizen Advocated United for Students Education, or BCAUSE, to help get information out to the public and try to convince Bigfork that voting for the bond was the right thing.

During the last bond election, the role of informing the public fell to Superintendent Russ Kinzer and his office. The District office, however, is legally forbidden from taking an official stance on the issue so Kinzer was limited to a strictly informative capacity.

Knoll said phone trees and mailers sent to each post office customer in the school district had a good response leading up to the election.

°()()A critical piece was that we truly learned that last time we did not address getting straightforward, complete, thorough yet understandable information about the bond to people,°+/- she said.

Kinzer said he was °()()very disappointed°+/- by the vote and indicated that in the future the costs to the community will not be measured in dollar amounts.

°()()The building will only continue to deteriorate,°+/- he said. °()()More students could leave.°+/-

In recent years some students, including a few promising athletes, have opted to attend school in Kalispell in part because of their larger athletic offerings.

Despite the disappointment, Kinzer said the will of the voters was heard clearly and that two defeats in six months is decisive.

Any future action on the issue will have to be determined by the school board, which meets next on March 12.

The high school bond would have expanded the school and updated some of its aging facilities such as portable A6P5 used for some math classes and antiquated science laboratories.

Along with plans to update the school, the joint community library plan is now scuttled as well, bring into question what the next step might be concerning an improved Bigfork branch.

Kim Crowley, director of the Flathead County Library system, said the joint library was the only plan and that at the present time there is not a backup.