Questions Abound About Rebuilding Treasure Mountain

I received some feedback that I was “all over the place” with my previous post about the School Board’s Master Planning Committee and the rebuild of Treasure Mountain. I’ll gladly take the feedback. I’m definitely not a writer. And I’m just happy someone read it :-). That said, I do want to make sure my point is as clear as possible.

So, here is the bullet point version:

• The Park City School Board formed a Master Planning Committee to decide whether Treasure Mountain Junior High (TMJH) should be rebuilt.
• Some would say they formed a Master Planning Committee because they wanted it rebuilt.
• During Wednesday’s meeting of the Master Planning Committee, participants were divided into groups and tasked with deciding where they would put schools on a map.
• I heard little discussion at all about tearing down Treasure Mountain; however, every single group decided to tear down TMJH, which seems strange.
• When I look at the facts, there aren’t glaring reasons to tear it down. Test scores are as good at TMJH as our best designed schools. People claim that it will cost more to fix it than to rebuild it, but the glaring problem with the school is allegedly the pipes and that has been estimated at a $3 million fix (versus $25 for a new school). People talk about the soil being bad, although it’s not dangerous according to the EPA … and regardless the EPA said they’ll pay to fix it.
• When the master planning committee started, it was about fixing a junior high. Now it is about building a new junior high, adding on to the high school, moving the learning center, building a new district office, moving Dozier field, adding a field house, redoing the high school gym, building a PC CAPS building, and creating a community center.
• This could cost upwards of $50 million.
• If a bond is necessary for rebuilding the school, this is going to eventually bite teachers in the *ss because residents are going to have tax/bond fatigue. When the next round of teacher raises come up, that requires a tax increase, people may say no thanks.

So, there you have it. I hope that’s a little easier to follow. It’s more blunt and more direct, but that’s how I see it.