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Show Leeway defeat sends negative message It is hard to evaluate the message voters sent to the Alpine School District last week when they turned down the proposed voter leeway. That's because there were several messages - and no single one cause can be credited with defeating the 3-mill 3-mill measure that would have raised $1.8 million each year for the district. One of the strong messages came from senior citizens, those who live on a limited income and feel they cannot afford to have any more of their funds gobbled up by income taxes. In at least one voting area it was reported that senior citizens were given rides during the senior citizen meal to the polls so they could cast their ballots. That kind of faith in and dedication to the democratic principles that rule our society is commendable - and other segments would be well advised to follow our senior citizens' lead. Also, the Alpine School District's inability to spell out the financial consequences of some investments made in 1982 and 1983 certainly hurt the leeway effort. The district's refusal to put all the figures involved in that transaction on the table left several voters asking themselves why they should allocate more funds to a district unwilling to account for investments of other public funds. However, those voters ignored the fact that the school district moved quickly to cut its losses when it realized the investments were improper. That involved selling back the investment notes and reinvesting the funds in more acceptable channels to recoup any losses . But the buy back included a non-disclosure agreement -which apparently is standard operating procedure between private businesses but questionable, at the best, for a public entity like the Alpine School District, where public money is involved and must be accounted for. As a result -of the non-disclosure agreement, if the district discloses the details of the buy back, they will have to pay a penalty of hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' tax-payers' dollars to the Texas firm. The district's lawyers are now looking for a way to make the details of the transaction public without costing the district a great deal of money. While the district ought to account for those funds, however, it's questionable that this matter should have been used to justify voting against the leeway proposal. It's more likely that several groups saw the leeway election as a means of expressing displeasure with the school district - and used the investment problems as a justification. Supporters of former American Fork High School Wayne Reid indicated at the time of his highly emotional hearing that they would find against the leeway as a form of protest for Reid's firing. Several of these individuals were instrumental in mounting media campaigns against the leeway based on the investment. But there was much more behind last week's vote i than that. I Given the district's tendency over the past few years to create and sustain controversy, it wasn't hard for many people to justify voting against the leeway. And that, more than any other single reason, is why the leeway was defeated last week. Many of those who opposed the leeway insisted they weren't against education, but rather opposed district practices. Unfortunately, it is the quality of education and not district practices that will suffer from the vote. Students will continue to take classes without textbooks and to attend overcrowded classrooms without aides to help the teacher. Because regardless of the message voters were hoping to send, the message received at the school district offices was that district patrons want schools to be operated at current or lower levels of funding. That's something we'll all have to learn to live with. |