Transparency Plan And Bond Rates

Technology RFP And Upgrade Goals

Facilities Timeline For Fall

Road Work Plans And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Welcome. Wanted to give you a quick update on uh Proposition S and kind of where we're going with things. Uh, first of all, thank you to everybody who voted. Um, I was really happy to see as a former civics teacher and government teacher that um we had almost a thousand people vote on proposition S. No matter what you voted. It's important to vote and always vote to protect our republic. And so thank you for doing that. Um, secondly, I want to give a thank you to Shane Woke and our Proposition S committee for all the hard work they did and getting the signs together, getting doing so much behind the scenes and also promoting this um proposition S. And uh I assure you we did not take that to the ballot without a lot of research. It was uh very became very apparent to me through study of one campus vision and working with outside groups monitoring our area that at some point the district was going to have to do something about the traffic for the school. Um I'm really glad we're able to get ahead of it and start working on it now. It does it will take time, but I'm glad we were able to do it proactively instead of reactively to something happening that would be kind of catastrophic out there as a reaction. So thank you so much for proving that and allowing us to do it. I assure you will be great stewards of the tax dollars we are gifted to take care of our kids. We that's a priority from my administrative offices. Um, we've done a lot of great things in the last couple of years to save money and be more um uh streamlined in our district and really do great things there and still be a the highest performing district in Jefferson County. Um, and we'll continue that mindset moving forward. First of all, um as we transition to um the proposition s kind of uh summaries and updates, um we are in the process of uh creating, you'll see along with this a web page that will keep documented everything so you can have one place to find it. I I'm just an educator at heart. I believe putting everything into one package that everybody can see and read if they if they want to follow along. And if not, you know where to go get it. So that'll accompany this video as well. Um the first update is we are working with LJ Hart. That happened the day after the election, to start communicating to them to create that window to do the best, very best we can as far as bonds and rates. Uh, we're gonna work on that over the next couple weeks and open that window to try to capture the best rates possible. And LJ Hart's been a partner with us. Keep in mind we've had a stable tax rate in this district since 2013, overall tax rate. And uh since 2002, in partnering with LJ Hart, um, we've reduced, saved the district 4.1 in interest uh through prepayment of bonds, and we continue to plan to do that moving forward as well. Um the second thing is the what I think is the really kind of maybe the unsung you know issue of this is the technology upgrade. So we're in the final stages of working with uh our groups to make sure our RFP is clean and that we can get as many, uh attract as many companies in that can provide us the best option, uh, whether it be financially or with technology. Uh we should be posting that, I would say, in the next week, maybe a little sooner. Um and so you should see that RFP going out. We really want to encourage many suitors in to look and see what we can do great for our kids there. So that's that's all that's been working on right now. The second part of it is the uh if you remember going back to the Prop S timeline, we believe we can have the football uh concession, bathrooms, press box done by the fall, as long with the baseball field. Um, the baseball field part of it too is to also start clearing some opportunity uh for able to bring the rock down off for the road in the future to get that moved and start really looking to the one campus vision and the future of the school district. But those activities are going on now. Um we've met on the football uh concession, pretty comfortable with the press box. That's a pretty simple design. It'll look very similar to what we have. It'll just look better and be a little bit wider. Um, but the concession stuff, we're going through the internal design of that right now. Um that it looks like we're able to add maybe a couple more bathrooms, uh actual commodes or toilets or whatever you want to call them into the facility, which is good for our patrons. Uh, but most importantly, when we're done, we'll have that that be able to pull the foot traffic in for the whole game. And secondly, with the baseball, you're probably already seeing equipment going out there. Um, one of our uh patrons, one of our uh parents, uh um Ryan Meyer has done a great job of communicating with us and kind of want to compliment him. He works the drones and does all this. It's pretty cool to see the technology. They're able to kind of go in these quadrants and give you the exact um you know level of the field from a drone, and they're gonna work on that. But uh he's also offered to take all of our plans. Uh, Kelly Weiss, Rap, and myself went through uh last year and kind of going back to Andrea was to pull all of our documents um together into one area and get them all the building plans together. So Ryan's gonna actually put those in digital format free for the district through his work here. Um we really appreciate that. And I think he's gonna help us with another project. We'll get more into that down the road if it comes to fruition to really give a great picture of what our campus is gonna look like through his technology. So I want to compliment him, but we are getting the process going to get the baseball facility and softball facility going there. And then, of course, the most the priority was the road work. We are um we're trading information right now. We've got meetings scheduled this week. Um, as you're seeing this, we may have already had the meetings to really try to lay out a plan of how the next couple years are gonna look and what we need to do. Um, you know, we've done a lot of engineering, a lot of legwork on the Blue J Way extension. We feel very comfortable there. We did want to wait till the bond issue passed to do any sort of engineering down on the Selma Danby End to really take a deeper look at our options there. And of course, throughout the process, seeing about what grants could be approved that we could reallocate dollars to create more parking or whatever we can do over here. That's gonna be kind of a complicated process, but we're going to work on that right now. Um, we will keep you updated. Um, really looking forward to uh looking at all the great partners we're going to meet through this process. Uh, we're off to a great start. Thank you again for the approval. And again, I assure you I again I enjoyed the education part of it, and we will have that website updated for you and send these videos out when appropriate. Thank you.