05/10/2007

Voters nix requests for big-ticket projects

Gloomy economic climate likely played big role

BY SHERI McWHIRTER

smcwhirter@record-eagle.com

and CHRISTINE FINGER

cfinger@record-eagle.com

PETOSKEY — Petoskey resident Jenny Ross wasn't surprised voters booted a $15 million proposal to build a new athletic complex for football, track and soccer.

And rightly so, she said.

"There are a lot of other things we could spend money on instead. They could just touch up the stadium we have now and not try to make everything all grand,” Ross said.

Voters by a 2,457 to 1,473 margin quashed the athletic fields plan and said no to a proposal to finance maintenance costs associated with a new sports complex.

It's simply the wrong economic climate in northern Michigan to ask for big projects, voters such as Ross said, with many people struggling to make house payments and take care of their families, she said.

Similar results were seen in the Grand Traverse County community of Kingsley, where voters handily rejected a $16.5 million bond proposal to finance construction of buildings and other improvements.

Jim Kan supported the Petoskey athletic fields plan, which would have replaced 80-year-old Curtis Field and generated hundreds of thousands more every year to maintain and operate the new digs.

"It's a disappointment that the community isn't behind the schools more than it showed,” Kan said.

Some people are dead-set against any increased taxes, he said, and others may have decided the project was not a good idea in light of state aid cuts to districts across Michigan.

"Whether the proposal passed or not would not have affected the per pupil amount in Petoskey Schools or elsewhere,” Kan said.

Kent Cartwright, district business manager, said 400 people used a tax calculator on the school's Web site to run scenarios for the proposed increases.

"Now we've got to figure out why people turned it down. We're going to engage people in dialogue … because 60 percent of voters turned this down and that is a reversal to the survey we did in November,” Cartwright said.

In Kingsley Area Schools, voters overwhelmingly defeated a proposal to raise property taxes by 3 mills for the next 20 years to pay for school expansion and improvements. The measure drew 912 votes against and 254 in favor.

The new millage would have allowed the district to borrow millions to build a new middle school, construct an addition to the high school, improve educational technology, and improve play and athletic fields. The building project was part of a long-range master plan developed by a steering committee of community members.

Rodney Bogart, president of Kingsley's village council and owner of a local construction business, said economic uncertainties likely played a role in the measure's defeat.

"I just think that with the state of the economy in Michigan, people are really afraid of any new taxes,” Bogart said. "Secondly, I don't know if the local perception of the school's needs are as great as the school's perception. It's not that anybody is against the school or the planning that they're trying to do.”

Enrollment in Kingsley schools increased about 19 percent in the last decade. The student count is about 1,500 and the district's figures predict gradual but steady growth in coming years.

Superintendent Lynn Gullekson said the district still needs to find a solution to ease school crowding. The district is in Grand Traverse County between Traverse City and Cadillac.

"It was pretty much a bare-bones proposal,” he said. "We'll just have to move forward from there.”