OPRF's existing pools need to be replaced; they are beyond their service life. At issue is how much to spend on pools, parking garages, taxation and the core academic mission of the high school.
New pools for OPRF do not require a new building and a wasteful new parking garage. The school board's plan would house a new pool in a newly constructed building. To make room for this new building, the plan wastes $12.6M to purchase, demolish and rebuild the existing structurally sound parking garage with 25 years of service life remaining according to the school board's engineers.
The POOL PROJECT (approved August 2016) - Here is a LINK to the Financial breakdown from OPRFHS.org for the 40-meter pool project and replacement garage proposed in August 2016 and defeated in a referendum vote on November 8, 2016. Page two includes the costs of the project. The image posted below highlights certain areas of expenditures in the original proposal from last August.
The bottom line - nearly $37 million of the total $44.5 million that this project will cost the taxpayers are costs directly related to constructing a swimming pool facility.
GREEN arrows are costs related to building the pool facility. These add up to nearly $37 million.
RED arrows are costs related to improvements to classroom and performing arts spaces. These add up to $5.47 million.
The BLUE arrow may or may not be related to classroom/performing arts spaces, depending how you consider weight room & band storage. However, the school recently changed this chart and reclassified this expense as entirely for the band.
We are NOT denying the need for improvements in many areas of the school, in particular the spaces allotted for performing arts. But to call this a facilities plan is false. It is, and always has been a pool plan. These enhancements were hastily added over the past few months to try to make the plan more palatable to a wider audience.
