On a recent article, one of our favorite commenters made the point that he felt the Park City School District school board is desperate because the next school bond will likely fail, just like the last one.\u00a0One of the reason’s he stated was due to the number of uninformed voters.<\/p>\n
The previous bond post-mortem also concluded that there were many uninformed voters and this impacted the outcome of the vote. There has been an effort this year to educate the voters, and that will likely intensify if the school board moves toward a bond vote.<\/p>\n
The problem is that education will only go so far. If passing the bond is the goal, we’re not sure education is the key.\u00a0What’s probably more important is how the voters feel about the organization offering the bond.<\/p>\n
To help prove our point, let’s discuss the 2004, 2010 and 2014 open space bonds (2014’s was part of a recreation bond). There is over\u00a0$30 million in those three\u00a0bonds dedicated to open space and trails. Our\u00a0question is: what has been purchased with that money and what areas are they focusing on with the remainder of the money?<\/p>\n
Uh…Uh… Uh… Run-A-Muck??? Actually, we have no clue.<\/p>\n
We had<\/a> to go look it up<\/a>.<\/p>\n We’d guess at least 75% of the community doesn’t know how the majority of the money is\u00a0being (was) spent. However, those bonds always easily pass. We’d guess another open space and trails bond would pass with flying colors.<\/p>\n Why? First, people here love open space and trails. Second, they trust groups like Utah Open Lands, Summit Land Conservancy, and Basin Rec.<\/p>\n Perhaps the school district doesn’t have an education problem. Perhaps they have a likability\u00a0problem coupled with trust issues.<\/p>\n The problem with correcting those is that it takes a constant and consistent effort to change your image. Do 6 months of good things and then screw up once, you’re back to square one. People are looking for reasons to criticize. People are going to demand near-perfection. Every\u00a0slip-up is\u00a0magnified.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, our gut tells us the Park City School District is pretty close to\u00a0square one.<\/p>\n We’re not sure where they start or how they go about it, but being a little more popular may not be a bad thing.<\/p>\n