Crucial meeting requires public participation

TO THE EDITOR:

Saturday, April 24, we heard the school superintendent compare the Cemetery Road and Mann Valley sites for a location of the new high school. We toured the sites also, looking for traffic safety and congestion points, visualizing the utility hookup requirements and counting out playing fields.

We support the Cemetery Road location. Most concerns are a draw between the two sites. But Cemetery Road costs less now, keeps the city more compact and takes the lower quality agricultural land. It is also the site preferred by the school board.

As school district residents, we all have the opportunity to vote one more time on the location of the high school. The Cemetery Road site will be voted up or down.

The vote is a standard part of the process school boards use to engage all of us in the decision making. A special meeting is being held Monday evening, May 3, for that vote.

The motion to be voted on is for the Cemetery Road location, because that is what the electorate selected in the December referendum. If the motion for Cemetery Road is defeated at the special meeting, the high school will be built in Mann Valley, without further activity. That too is part of the process.

The May 3 meeting is the final act in the high school site decision making. The beginning of the meeting is for information and debate. The end of the meeting is for voting by paper ballot.

The meeting will be long. If you have a problem with that, come to the meeting around 8:30 p.m. The voting should occur between 9 and 9:30 p.m.

If you don't like to drive at night, please call us at 425-5818 and we'll get you there.

Bob Baldwin and

Marilynn Felderman Baldwin

city of River Falls