Dear Editor:
The Roland Street neighborhood in Jefferson City is a stable neighborhood of retirees and young families. We are property owners, taxpayers and voters. We were quite disturbed to read in the News Tribune (Sept. 28 edition) that the school board has made a decision to purchase property to possibly house students on long-term suspension, or to house the district adult education program or maybe erect a parking lot ("They haven't committed to a specific use for the property").
The school officials are willing to spend $206,500 to destroy the property value of our homes showing no respect or concern for the families in this community. At 3 p.m., when the high school has dismissed we endure students speeding down the street, never knowing if a child will be killed due to cars traveling at high speeds, trash thrown from cars as they speed down the street, and now to read that the school board has decided to add insult to injury they are proposing to introduce more chaos to our lives.
That is $206,500 that we as taxpayers have contributed. At this time the district school officials have NOT met with the homeowners that will be affected by their reckless decision. There are empty houses and a burned out house on Jackson Street, which is just across the street from the high school. Why is this not an option?
If the school district is attempting to be good neighbors and practice good "stewardship" this is not a good approach nor was their plan well thought out. Our school board officials should remember in order to pass a school bond Issue it is important to have a well-organized group of supporters and in order to defeat a school bond issues it takes a well-organized group of disenchanted voters and taxpayers.
I still cling to the ideals that democracy works. I pray that this is still the case in this situation.