Guest Opinion: Why Vote to Raise Taxes in a Terrible Economy?

By Norm Stamper

Having spent three and a half decades in law enforcement, I have some thoughts about what makes for a safe, prosperous and healthy community.  It starts, not surprisingly, with family:  Every child needs a secure, nurturing start in life.  Just as every child needs and deserves a sound, life-shaping formal education.

Which brings me to the school bond issue.

As a supporter of the original $36 million bond measure, I sat on my tail, figuring the case had been made.  All I needed to do was to mail in my ballot, await the inevitable wisdom of Orcas voters, then join my neighbors in celebrating its passage.  I don’t know which disappoints more:  The 45 percent who voted no?  Or the silent supporters who, like me, didn’t bother to share publicly the rationale behind their position?

Throughout my career I was involved in the construction of major capital improvement projects:  new jails and courthouses, new police headquarters in San Diego and Seattle, new precinct houses in both cities.  One thing I learned early on was that deferring essential construction projects (in some cases for years and years) creates crushing financial and operational problems, both in the future and in the here and now.

I understand, I think, why some of us are opposed to the bond issue.  First, why an essentially new school, and for only 450-500 children?  Second, why trust the school board?  And, third, why put this thing out there in the middle of a terrible economy?

Let’s take a look at each of these points.  If you don’t have kids or if they’re no longer of school age, this provides an easy out.  My “child,” for example, is 44 years old.  He lives in Southern California, 1100 miles away.  His children, my twin granddaughters, attend a Montessori school in Carlsbad.  So, what’s in it for me to vote “yes” on a school bond issue so many miles and years removed my own child-rearing days?  Well, I live here now, on Orcas.  This is home.  I care about kids who aren’t my own; I realize that how we treat them, how we provide for them has much to do with how they’ll treat their community — now and in the future.  It doesn’t matter whether there are 450 or 4,500 children attending our public schools.  Each and every one of them is important, deserving of a safe, conducive learning environment.

Why trust this school board?  For well over a year I’ve consumed every news source, from the paper I pick up each Wednesday, to the news I receive online, to teachers’ personal accounts of their struggles to teach in outdated, unsafe, unfit facilities.  I’ve followed the board’s wise, unflagging efforts to meet the pressing needs of our students and their teachers.  I believe we have a school board that is the envy of communities throughout the country.  Its members get it.  They’re compassionate, caring, and, most important, competent.  I trust them, even as I continue, as a taxpayer, to monitor their positions and actions.

Finally, why vote in today’s economy to pass a multi-million dollar bond issue?  Because the facilities, worn out and dysfunctional, simply must be replaced.  To delay construction means hugely inflated costs in the future.  You can label this school board insensitive for putting the measure before us in these tough times, or you can call them, as I do, visionary and courageous.

I am voting “yes” on the school bond issue next month because it’s the right thing to do.  But it’s also, for me, an act of atonement for not speaking out when the original proposal hit the ballot last February.

Norm Stamper

Eastsound