Dakota Today

**Another Winner School Opt-Out Election, now for April 14

Someone or some group calling itself "Education First Committee" has distributed a brochure in support of the coming Winner School Opt-Out for $500,000 election scheduled for April 14, 2009. Just a week or two ago, an Opt-out election for $900,000 also for three years running was shot down by about 85% No to 15% Yes by over 1200 voters in Tripp County. Apparently the administration and school board view either $2.7 million or now $1.5 million as chicken feed so long as taxpayers are footing the bill.

 The brochure has no information on who designed, printed, or paid for it. Images of the front and back in reduced size are below. Click on image for a larger version. If you can read it, you will see some information on school performance and costs to taxpayers for some valuations of homes, businesses and ag property. The brochure lists ag valuations around $100,000. One can multiply by actual agriculture land value, but my guess is that most farms and ranches in the county with the high valuations tacked on land here probably have total taxable values more likely in the $500,000 to several $million. Tax increases for those sizes would be in the $500 to $1000 and over areas.

Even if 80% of the students come from Winner city itself, something around 80% of the school tax comes from the surrounding farm ground. It is an all together too good a reciprocal relationship to ignore. One might suggest that the Winner School Board and Administration has moved April Fool's Day from the first to the 14th of April. Combine that with April 14 being the federal income tax deadline, and my guess is most taxpayers won't be too thrilled with the idea of rewarding a board and administration with a bonus for what now appears to be serious mismanagement and disregard for the interests of taxpayers.

 Groups supporting more money for schools always claim to be doing it in the interests "of the child" or in full development of children's potential, etc. But, my experience suggests that the money behind such efforts almost always comes from businesses or groups who will benefit...especially if nobody seems interested in calling themselves the actual supporters.

That factor may also help to explain why low-cost or no-cost or long-term high efficiency and cost-effective options are often not selected by all kinds of private and government or quasi-public systems. There are not many voices willing to contribute or devote resources to processes or infrastructure that does not benefit them in any particularly direct positive way. Information on better solutions is thus ignored or never presented or presented ineffectively with limited promotion funds.

 Architects building on a percentage basis are not particularly interested in supporting no or low cost options. Software companies are not going to mention open source or free options even if they might be just as good or nearly as good for a fraction of the cost of commercial software the vendor is selling or using.

 There is a saying that "One lawyer in a town will starve. Two lawyers in a town will both get rich." There are just too many rea$ons to fight until the last dollar of taxpayers' or insurer's money is burned up.

 

*** Stay tuned for another month of lawyers and administrators versus the taxpayers-- Doug Wiken

**Let's destroy a good swimming pool and raise taxes to build a new mistake

The powers that be in Winner SD are busy hyping a new project.  A new swimming pool.  Step one was destroying the old bathhouse rather than repairing it.  Fait Accompli that act.  It is much like the previous idiotic plan here to demolish a solid old school building with a new piece of poorly planned and poorly placed junk construction built for students who are no longer here.  That plan was driven by local desire to sell concrete and carpet, etc.  Never mind that it was the economic equivalent of a couple dozen people dying here as the bond payments disappeared from the local economy.

But the local "progress" faction learned some truly scabby tactics from that  and whoppee they are back on the road with a new swimming pool idea financed by taxes on local houses and visitors dumb enough to buy food or drink here or stay in a motel here. 

A crop of these signs have popped up on some lawns in Winner, SD.  An anonymous tract has been mailed to everybody with  a utility account in  Winner with  no return address and  no sender name on it. u Previously we received a letter indicating supporters included Gene Grossenburg and Dr. Berg.  Grossenburgs sell concrete.  When the school project was approved, Gene's son Barry was on the school board.  As soon as the project was approved, he resigned from the school board.  Hmmm.

This is a foolish, poorly planned and presented wasteful plan.  The existing pool has one foot thick concrete walls.  There are cracks in the bottom which require annual patching.  That is not a reason for spending several million dollars and adding another local tax.  The claim is that tens of thousands of gallons of water are leaking from underground and under pool or pool deck rusted pipes. 

That leakage problem can be solved for next to nothing by plugging all such pipes where they run into the pool and adding above deck plastic pipe for suction and return lines from the filtering system which can than be inspected for leaks easily.

Instead of building a new summer-only pool that has piping underground again, spend money to enclose the existing pool in a building and add an access "tunnel" to the nearby high school so that students can have swimming as part of the athletic curriculum.  At least it would provide a useful skill which can never be said for football and other contact sports.  As far as I can tell, nobody from this school has died early because the did not play football, but several have died early around here because they never learned to swim.

Enclosing the old pool will help stabilize the system and make it useful year around and also reduce evaporation from the pool water surface.  Building another pool to replace a pool with foot-thick walls and hundreds of square yards of existing concrete deck is very wasteful of materials and taxpayer resources.  If the existing pool is not going to be used, the pool site should be located elsewhere and at least the hundreds of cubic yards of existing concrete there be used as a foundation for some other new community building built on the pool walls as a foundation.

If anybody gives a damn about not wasting taxpayer money, I will put up an album of photos of the existing pool here at Dakota Today.

*** Stay tuned even if your only ideas of "progress" involve wasting tax dollars for self aggrandizement--- but no plaques on the wall of this blog for memorializing the chief tax wasters-- Doug Wiken