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Show There's A Way In March of this year, a meeting was held in Springville high school under the sponsorship of the Chamber of Commerce, the purpose of which was to discuss school building needs which have become very acute. A large crowd was in attendance at the meeting including, besides the Chamber of Commerce committee com-mittee and our local board member, Paul Thorn, representatives rep-resentatives of all the civic clubs, ladies' clubs, P.T.A., and taxpayers. This group went on record unanimously unani-mously as favoring the building of a new grade school in Springville and that the present grade school buildings be modernized and made safe from fire, but that no rooms be added to the present structures. struc-tures. Not having heard of any activity or effort being made by the school district to make these buildings safe, on June 20, this paper called upon the city administration ad-ministration to make an inspection of the grade buildings. The fire prevention committee of the Chamber of Commerce of which Blaine Thorpe is chairman, met with the city council, also, and asked that the schools be inspected. Consequently the city building inspector, L. E. Wiscombe and the city fire chief, Reed L. Rigtrup, made an inspection and submitted a report on July 15. The report condemned the three grade schools for public use in their present condition and made recommendations for changes which would make them safe. The following day, July 16, Springville city officials sent a copy of the fire committee's report re-port to the Nebo school district office together with a letter asking Nebo school district for a reply setting forth what could be done or what they could do to remedy the condition. To date, our city has not even been extended the courtesy of a reply. On Wednesday night, August 7, a committee brought together by the Springville Chamber of Commerce which included the fire prevention committee com-mittee of the Chamber of Commerce, representatives of the civic organizations of Springville, representatives representa-tives of Springville city administration and representatives represen-tatives of the P.T.A., met with the school board and superintendent to see why our grade buildings were not being made safe. This committee was informed that nothing could be done due to the fact that the Civilian Production Administration would not grant them permission to do this work. That there had been repeated attempts made by the superintendent to get approval for this construction but that Mr. Seilers, head of the Salt Lake office of the C. P. A. had informed them that their requests would be turned turn-ed down. On Monday of this week, a committee from Springville went to Salt Lake City and met with Mr. Seilers to see why Nebo School district's application for fixing Springville grade schools were being turned turn-ed down. Mr. Seilers informed the committee that at no time had application been made by the Nebo School district to make any repairs or remodeling of any school building in Springville except for a lunch room and kitchen under the high school gym. lie also informed the committee that neither Mr. Barnett nor any member of the school board had been in the office of-fice since May, before the close of school, when the application to construct a kitchen and lunch room was approved. Mr. Seilers further informed the committee com-mittee that they would be very happy to have applications applica-tions for the necessary remodeling and repairs to make these grade buildings safe and that without question such applications would be approved. Materials in the form of re-enforcirig steel was purchased several years ago and stored in the basement base-ment of the Grant school. It was purchased for the purpose of putting in cement stairways in the Grant and Jefferson schools. This material has been in the past few years, up to and including this summer, removed re-moved from the Grant school and used elsewhere in the district. Where there's a will there's a way. This newspaper news-paper invites the people of Springville to go and see the fine new cement stairways being completed in the Spanish Fork high school. Mr. Barnett has stated that the editor of this newspaper is unfair, using a weapon namely the newspaper, to arouse public sentiment, a weapon he does not have. We have repeatedly invited Mr. Barnett to express ex-press his views on these school matters in the columns of this newspaper. We again extend to Mr. Barnett and members of the school board an invitation to submit sub-mit any articles which they care to write and they will be printed in this newspaper in their entirety without cost to them. |