Rye City School District is reporting the $20 million Rye School bond has been defeated.
There were 1,777 votes NO (54.7%) and 1471 votes YES (45.3%).
Emails flew into in boxes all day today, "robo" calls went to Rye homes last night and the school district charged bond opponents of pedaling misinformation. There were reports of long lines at the polls until they closed at 9pm.
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The one thing the NO people never offered was a solution to the overcrowding. Perhaps they will be willing to open their homes to provide the additional classroom space.
Debbi,
Yes, god for bid for once there is a NO in Rye!
Don’t worry Debbi, you will still be able to sell your home for millions!
Looks like the middle class still count.
I was for the bond. I do not have any children left in the school. I find it sad that I got bombarded with literature and phone calls to remind me to vote NO. Why didn’t the school fight back? Only 3300 people voted. Any parent that wanted the bond to pass but didn’t vote – shame on you.
Honest Citizen,
Why is it sad that you were bombarded with a request to “vote no”?
I am not condoning this in anyway, but how is this any different than being bombarded with a request to “vote yes”?
“According” to the schools, there was a lot of misrepresentation in the group that wanted you to vote NO. I feel that the school didn’t fight back hard enough in the press to either deny what the NO group was saying or make sure what the schools were saying was heard. I do believe the schools weren’t lying about the overcrowding. Now what? I think it was ridiculous that they were going to put in new locker rooms. I wanted up to date classrooms with up to date equipment. Most kids don’t use the locker rooms anyway. For all of the millions of dollars in this community do you want your children to be portables?
Honest,
Yes, they did not have all their ducks in a row as their facts were a little off…so if they had their facts right you would have been okay with being bombarded?
And no, I do not want my kids being taught from portables, but with respect to all parties involved everyone needs to be honest with their motives!
We can’t just add add add because science classrooms bring us the bang for the buck.
I’m all for our children getting the best but at what cost and when & where do we draw the line?
I believe the BOE was not honest with all their motives, I think they used one motive to gain another. Given our past success rate on School Bonds being passed I believe the BOE took this for granted and didn’t work hard enough on this bond in just assuming it would go through regardless…..I hope they learned a lesson!
This bond vote didn’t just lose .
IT GOT TROUNCED!!!! If this was a political election , the NO vote crowd would be running around doing handstands claiming its obvious the Rye citizens have given them a MANDATE to stop the spending madness !
All you silly folks talking about the ‘disinformation’ from the NO side ? Well here is some ABSOLUTELY DEAD HONEST TRUTH FOR YOU!
Westchester County has highest property taxes in the nation . The Rye School system gets the majority of our already record high property tax rates . In short , the Rye School system is a bloated pig spending ABSURD amounts of money . This is fact . Compare us to any and all counties outside Westchester and ESPECIALLY compare us to affluent towns to our east !
Move your house to Greenwich , CT and your school taxes fall 40% and last i checked , Greenwich High School has FABULOUS facilities and sends graduates to Ivy League schools every year .
Move your house to Darien or New Canaan and your school taxes drop 50% or more . The public schools are gorgeous and the kids get into all the same colleges ours do .
HOW CAN THIS BE!!!!!!!??????????
Answer is obvious . They are able to attract good teachers WITHOUT PAYING THEM 6 FIGURE SALARIES AND PROVIDING GOLD PLATED RETIREMENT / HEALTHCARE PACKAGES .
Why aren’t you angry folks confronting Dr Shine with this ? Why are you assuming paying massively higher taxes to him is ‘good’ and ‘needed’ when top school systems close by achieve same as Rye on far less ?
Oh , and Doug French and you so called fiscal conservative Republicans on Town Council ? I hope you realize this school bond vote result is also aimed RIGHT AT YOU !!!
Rye Schools mirror Rye city finances . The school buildings are overcrowded and crumbling much like the Rye roads are overcrowded and crumbling . Yet despite the obvious fact our physical plant is falling apart before our eyes and quality of life for all going straight to hell , we are asked to pay even higher and more than our already record high property taxes !!!!!?????
This is because Rye city and schools are wildly overpaying their unionized employees . Their salaries are too high , their benefits absurdly generous ( compare to any private employers ) and the retirement plans beyond comprehension with taxpayers forced to cover all stock and bond market short falls . And us taxpayers have to do this despite our own IRA’s dropping !!!
I posted a few weeks ago on the new 2012 Rye budget that it was a fiasco . Double digit increased payments to the unionized employee benefits / retirement and salary needs while at same time all funds to maintain Rye roads and sidewalks eliminated for the year .
Now we see the Rye school system is running beyond system capacity and rooms are falling apart ( by their own admission ) DESPITE the fact we already pay highest property/school taxes in the nation !!! Its just like the Rye city problem …. TOO MANY OVERPAID AND OVER-BENEFITTED EMPLOYEES LEAVES NOTHING TO MAINTAIN OR EXPAND THE PHYSICAL PLANT …..
So guess what Rye ? You are on the road to financial hell . I personally guarantee you that the state mandated payments to the Rye employee and teacher union benefits and retiremenmt plans will go up double digits next year AGAIN ( because stocks are red for year and bond yields are almost at 0% ) which will mean you’ll see French back with another 4-5% ( or larger ) tax hike next year to fund the overpaid employees and you will see road maintenace or some other critical town function get defunded AGAIN ! School system is overcrowded but town taxpayers can’t take the pain of more tax hikes ……. About all we can hope for with the schools is more families pull their kids for private schools .
By 2013 , i predict you’ll see the Rye School system ‘SHOCKED’ again at the student population growth coming in higher than expected . This will be due to the explosion of multi-family apartments going up all over Rye that are immediately filled with families looking for cheap ways to jam their kids into our school system while those apartment units won’t generate but a fraction of the tax revenue to cover the $20+ thousand cost per student assuring us the problem is even worse . Your Town Planning Board all but helping assure the school system will soon be nothing but piles of portables strewn everywhere .
Eventually ? the unthinkable happens and the test scores fall ..
I can only hope my house is sold and i’m gone by the time we turn into New Rochelle …..