Good News Last Night From The Board of Education As Expected
Posted: Fri Jul 12, 2013 8:18 am
Lakewood Board of Education with Superintendent Jeffrey Patterson and Treasurer Tim Penton get ready to take the final steps to finish the SCHOOLS!
I contacted Board President Ed Favre last night after the special Board meeting to find out how it all went. The first Resolution necessary to start this process passed unanimously.
This first resolution, as Mr. Favre explained it, declares the necessity of a bond issue to the electorate-- this is sent to the County Auditor's office who will then certify that Lakewood has the bonding capacity. When the county comes back and says, "Yes, you have the capacity to do this" the next resolution can be passed.
Mr. Favre said that the next resolution will be introduced at the next Board meeting with all members in attendance, July 23rd. This will allow a bond to be placed on the ballot for the next election in November.
"We finally finally have the opportunity to get this done and we're going to do it," Mr. Favre said.
"This thing was derailed by the recession, delayed and delayed, and now the day has come. We need to get these kids out of the modulars and into a top rated high caliber high school buildings, and elementary buildings for Grant, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. It's time these kids were enjoying the same caliber of buildings as the other students in our district."
Mr. Favre credited Superintendent Jeffrey Patterson's tenaciousness with the Ohio Facilities Construction Committee, for making this happen. He explained how everyone on the Lakewood end was poised and ready, waiting for today, July 11th, when the OFCC would meet and decide whether to release funds for Lakewood City Schools.
"Jeff was really pushing them, saying 'we're ready, we're ready,'" Favre said. "They were impressed with how high are numbers were on the passage of our levy. We had a good feeling about it, but it's not going to happen until they actually say yes, and today they did. Jeff did a yeoman's job," Favre said. "He deserves a lot of credit."
As I mentioned in my earlier post, there is a certain window of time in which a district must act to secure funding and this is one of the reasons our district is jumping on it, the soonest we could vote on it is this November and so that's the plan.
"It's the right thing to do, and we gotta do it," said Favre. "Now's the time. Let's go."
Betsy Voinovich