CLICK TO HEAR JACK HALL’S INTERVIEW WITH SUPERINTENDENT ADAM COCO
Tuesday is Election Day across Michigan, with local school and municipal questions being decided by voters. One of the few elections in our area is the Carney-Nadeau Schools bond proposal.
Carney-Nadeau is asking for a 2-point-5 mill bond for seven years that would pay for improvements at the school, including new windows, playground equipment, and bleachers in the gym. Superintendent Adam Coco says the money would also built a new building to house a fitness center and lab for the robotics program.
He says the windows date back to 1984.
“The manufacturer has gone out of business,” Coco told the Radio Results Network on Monday. “When a part breaks, we can no longer get replacements. A lot of them are fogged up, which means the gas between the panes has gone out. They’re very cold to the touch in the winter. They’re drafty.”
He says the bleachers date back to 1993.
“We’ve got pretty good use of them, with at least a thousand athletic events,” Coco said. “Not only that, but Christmas programs and graduation programs and school assemblies. You’re talking thousands of times these bleachers have been used. It just kind of takes its toll after a while. We’re at the point with them where they really can’t be repaired. We feel, rather, that they should be replaced.”
The playground equipment was last upgraded in 1993.
Coco says that using a home with a $56,000 market value as an example, which is an assessed value of $28,000, the added cost would be affordable.
“When you break that out, it works out about 17 cents a day, or around $62 a year,” he said. “We have a calculator on our web site that asks you five simple questions and you can find out what the cost would be for your home.”
Coco says hundreds of ballots have been mailed throughout the district, but people can go either to the Nadeau or Gourley Township Halls if they would like to turn in a ballot in person Tuesday.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Monday that at least one polling spot will be open in each jurisdiction that’s holding an election in Michigan, and to protect election workers, people should wear a mask when voting.
The votes will be counted after 8:00 Central time by the Menominee County Clerk.
More information from the Carney-Nadeau web site is posted below.
On Tuesday, May 5th, Carney-Nadeau Public School is asking the local citizenry to vote upon a School Improvement Bond ballot initiative, and the purpose of this letter is to give some specifics as to what our proposal entails.
* Replace the current playground with completely new equipment. The main portion of our playground dates back to 1993 (with some pieces on the periphery being several decades older). After nearly 30 years of constant use, our current equipment is showing every bit of its age. We will be sharing potential design ideas in the coming weeks and, should this proposal pass, our plan is to complete this project in the summer of 2020.
* Replace all windows—these date back to the 1990’s as well–in the two-story portion of our building. Several of them no longer properly open or shut, and the insulating gas between the panes has long ago leaked out causing them to frost up during the winter months. The eight classrooms and two hallways in this part of our building were of course remodeled during the summer of 2019 with money secured from a Hannahville grant, but our funds did not allow for the windows to be replaced. This project would be completed prior to the start of the 2020-21 school year.
* Replace the bleachers in our gymnasium. These, too, originate from the 1993 school addition project, and after hundreds—if not thousands—of sporting events and other school functions, are in dire need of replacement. The bleachers would be installed during the summer of 2020.
* Construct an outbuilding at the edge of our western-most parking lot (near the greenhouse) to house both a fitness center (as is currently located in our basement) and a classroom/lab for our robotics program. In doing so, we would not only create brand-new facilities—of which the fitness center will be publicly accessible 24/7—but we would also free up a comparable amount of space within our main building. In turn, the classroom currently used by robotics would be utilized to expand our special education offerings and behavioral support services, and the basement space would be partitioned and used for support services, a maintenance workshop, and storage. This building would be completed by the fall of 2021
As a means to fund these improvements, CNPS is proposing a bond issue that is expected to require a 2.5 mill levy for a period of seven years.
This would constitute a .5 mill reduction from the 3-mill sinking fund levy you’ve been paying since 2018.
Full information is posted here: http://cnps.us/2020-carney-millage-information/
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