A Couple of Interesting FAQs on the New District 304 Web Site!
April 10, 2009
Geneva School District 304 has a brand new website. It is very well done and quite attractive. There is a lot of useful and interesting information on the site that I encourage you to review at your leisure.
I was struck by what I found in the Frequently Asked Questions section under this Facilities Master Plan link. Of the three FAQ’s in this section, two are of particular interest to me and have been featured in prior posts on this site. The first is this question and answer copied directly from that page:
The District owns 27 acres at the corner of Keslinger and Brundige roads … what is being built there?
(posted March 25, 2009)
We are moving our maintenance garages from south of the high school (on McKinley Avenue) to this location, replacing the practice fields that were lost along Williamsburg Avenue when the elementary school was built, and paving a portion to park buses that are currently parked at our middle schools. Contrary to some reports we have heard, there are no plans to build a second bus garage at this location.
Isn’t this fascinating? I suggest you refresh your memory on this by reading my prior post, and especially the comments on this topic.
So, the district says it’s not a “bus garage”, but instead it is a “maintenance garage” and a paved lot “to park buses that are currently parked at our middle schools”. Hmmmm, a new paved lot to park buses on, buses that are already being parked on district owned paved lots?
Also, from the FAQ for District Operations did you know that we buy new buses every year (61 last year!) and then sell them back after one year. How desperately can we need a new maintenance facility for a fleet of new buses, especially when the current Keslinger bus facility has three maintenance bays? Ignore for now any capacity at the McKinley Avenue maintenance facility. If I assume, the average repair is 8 hours, then the current Keslinger facility alone can repair 3 buses per day and 15 per week, assuming three full time mechanics. If we have a fleet of 61 new buses, does anyone seriously believe that these bays alone are completely full every weekday? This would imply that 1/4 of the fleet is coming in every week for 8 hours of maintenance, which is absurd for a new fleet. If anything, this would suggest maintenance downsizing opportunities, perhaps the McKinley Avenue facility itself.
So why in the world do we need another bus maintenance facility? It can’t just be to replace athletic practice fields, can it?
Bottom line, the District can call the proposed Keslinger garage whatever they want, but it looks like an unnecessary facility and a waste of tax dollars to me. As long as the District is answering questions via FAQ, I’d like to see them answer the Why do we need this? question and these questions specific to the Keslinger Road site: 1. Who did they actually buy this land from? and 2. How much did they pay? I think most of us have a very good idea of who the seller was, albeit certainly shielded behind various perfectly legal land trusts, so the real question is how much did we pay and why is it such a secret? If the Board has nothing to hide, please update this FAQ with the answers. I’ll check the website occasionally for the update.
The second FAQ of interest is as follows:
Why was the Gray Street parking lot constructed using brick pavers instead of asphalt?
(posted March 25, 2009)
The new Gray Street parking lot added 59 parking spaces, three of which are handicap accessible, to the high school campus to alleviate parking congestion on residential streets and to meet the needs of a growing student and staff population. The lot was built using brick pavers instead of asphalt because pavers eliminated the need to construct a storm water retention area, which would have encroached upon the school’s playing fields. The brick pavers are more environmentally friendly and actually cost the School District about $50,000 less than if asphalt had been used and a retention area constructed.
You can read my prior post and the comments on this here. I still maintain that this lot was unnecessary, regardless of paving material.
In any case, the new web site looks great and based on the content, it looks like somebody at the District Office is either reading the Mill Creek Times or catching flak from others that are.
