School Board hears from attorney on offer’s terms
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The East Troy Community Schools Board of Education met in closed session Monday night after its regular board meeting to hear the opinion of the School District’s attorney on the proposed terms on the sale.
School Board President Ted Zess said Tuesday morning no action was taken by the board on the possible sale of the Byrnes and/or Doubek properties as it was an informational/discussion item only.
During the regular board meeting, resident Tim Griffin addressed the board in public participation, asking the board, and district, to be more clear on what’s going on with the referendum projects.
“Things just don’t seem as clear as they should be,” Griffin said.
He referenced a couple recent letters to the editor in the newspaper where a resident had questioned the scope of the high school project and some proposed cutbacks in the lecture hall, which have since been put back into the project. Zess wrote a letter to the editor in response, which said, in part, that people who want to know what’s going on should be attending the School Board meetings.
“I’ve been at most of these meetings,” Griffin said. “And I don’t know what’s going on.”
Griffin said he understood how things change in building projects such as the referendum projects, but with the lack of information he was confused at who was making the decisions that resulted in things like the lecture hall proposed cutbacks and the welding stations having to be increased at such a late date.
Griffin questioned whether the right people were involved in making the decisions, such a teacher using the areas, or if they were involved as much as they should be.
District Administrator Chris Hibner addressed Griffin’s concerns later in the meeting during his administrator’s reports, saying the district was doing everything it could to get the information out there.
“I feel people have been heavily involved in the process,” Hibner said. “There are always challenges when making decisions in a project like this and here it involves a few more voices.”
Hibner said he knew of many, many meetings at the building level, which he was not even part of, to make the decisions, but acknowledged it was a difficult thing for everyone involved.
“Nobody wants to make the wrong decision that could impact something later on,” he said.
Hibner went on to commend the “diligent” work of the district’s administration and staff on the referendum projects.
