PORT ANGELES — City Council members will consider endorsing the Port Angeles School District’s proposed bond and two-year maintenance and operations levy after taking public input Tuesday on the proposals.
Comments both pro and con will be solicited during the regular council meeting on a two-year levy — which would collect $8.6 million in 2016 and $8.8 million in 2017 — and a 25-year, $98.3 million construction bond for a new high school.
Ballots will be mailed to more than 19,000 school district voters Jan. 21 for the all-mail election that ends at 8 p.m. Feb. 10.
The City Council meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the City Council chambers at City Hall, 321 E. Fifth St.
Mark Jackson, schools superintendent, and Kelly Pearson, school district director of business and finance, will present information to the council, school district spokeswoman Tina Smith-O’Hara said.
The two-year maintenance and operations levy would replace the four-year levy that expires next December.
The bond would be used to replace eight classroom buildings and refurbish the auditorium on the 39.7-acre Port Angeles High School campus.
“It’s important as a community that we are all together on this thing,” Steve Methner, co-chairman of Port Angeles Citizens for Education, which goes by the acronym PACE, said of the bond proposal.
“The stakes are pretty high for Port Angeles to go forward to renew our educational environment,” added Methner, whose wife, Sarah, is a School Board member.
“Having a building constructed initially when [Dwight D.] Eisenhower was president speaks to the fact that it’s time to renew this in terms of our civic health and economic health.
“PACE feels it’s important for the City Council to know the details of the proposal and hopefully endorse it.”
Bond critic Eric Foth said Friday that there must be a more sensible approach to rebuilding the high school and that the school district should reset its priorities.
“It’s a huge burden on me as a taxpayer to commit this kind of money for 25 years,” he said.
The bond would cost property owners $2.06 per $1,000 of assessed valuation annually for 25 years based on 2014 property values.
It would cost the owner of a $200,000 home an additional $412 in 2016.
The school district would be charged an estimated $83 million in interest on the bond.
A 60 percent majority is required for voter passage of a school bond issue. In addition, there must be a 40 percent voter turnout based on the number of votes cast in the school district in last month’s general election.
Foth said he is not opposed to the levy measure, although he added that “very little” from levies intended for school district maintenance and operations is spent on actual maintenance.
Most pays for salaries and benefits, Foth said, adding the district also has declining enrollment.
The two-year levy, which would cover school district expenditures in 2016 and 2017, would replace a four-year levy that expires Dec. 31.
A simple majority is needed for levy passage.
The measure would cost property owners $3.26 per $1,000 of assessed valuation compared to a levy rate of $3.23 per $1,000 collected in 2014.
It would cost the owner of a $200,000 home $652 in 2016.
The combined levy and new bond would mean an additional cost of $1.63 per $1,000 of cost to property owners, or $326 a year for the owner of a $200,000 home.
Mayor Dan Di Guilio said Friday the City Council has taken positions on school district measures in the past but was unsure if council members would do so on the Feb. 10 proposals.
Di Guilio said he is undecided on how he will vote on the bond and levy.
“I’m interested in what’s happening [at the school district] and interested in what they are trying to do, but we will give the opportunity for folks who are not supportive of the levy to speak as well,” Di Guilio said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
