County voters turn down $20.6M Beaver bond issue

One middle school classroom is a converted closet.
By NANCY TULLIS
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
LISBON -- Beaver school officials will have until the March 2 primary to persuade voters to fund construction of new schools.
Voters defeated the district's request for a $20.6 million bond issue to fund construction of a preschool-through-fifth-grade building near the high school, along state Route 7 in Madison Township near Beaver Creek State Park.
The new elementary building would be the first of a three-phase project. It would also include building a new high school, and adding to and renovating the current high school to a middle school for sixth- through eighth-grade pupils.
Treasurer Robert Barrett said the bond issue and 1/2 mill for maintenance of the building would cost the average homeowner in the district about $17 per month. The average home value in the district is about $87,000 he said.
Superintendent Willard Adkins said voters defeated the levy without gathering much information about it. He said several community information meetings were poorly attended.
"This will be back on the ballot because this is not something we can let go of," he said. "The losers here are the students."
Invitation to residents
Adkins said district residents should come out to the school and see the crowded conditions for themselves. He said the schools under the current configuration are bursting at the seams. Pupils meet in modular buildings, and one middle school classroom is a converted closet.
The Beaver Board of Education voted in August 2001 to participate in the Ohio School Facilities Commission's expedited local partnership program. With voter approval of the $20.6 million for the elementary school, the state will pay $30 million from the OSFC's state building assistance fund to build the high school and renovate the current high school to a middle school.
Barrett said the expedited program will allow the district to build the elementary while waiting to qualify for funding through OSFC for the remaining buildings. The district won't be eligible for OSFC money until 2008, and a new elementary building is needed now, Barrett said.
The district's buildings were constructed in the 1950s and are undersized. They also do not meet current codes and the cost of renovating them would be more than replacement, he said.
The new elementary buildings would replace buildings at Rogers, West Point and Calcutta. Those buildings would be abandoned, he said.