School Board Advances Reduced $73.4M Capital Spending Proposal – Meeting Tuesday
Clarification: Rye schools have asked MyRye.com to clarify that "No second bond proposal has been advanced. Just suggestions for reductions." We have edited the headline and added this clarification.
In the wake of the defeat of the Rye school bond, community discussion will continue about a revised bond.
(PHOTO: Rye schools boss Eric Byrne at last Tuesday's board of ed meeting.)
The Rye City School District Board of Education will meet Tuesday, April 9, 2019 beginning at 8:00pm in the Rye Middle School Multipurpose Room. The bond will be the main topic – "it is anticipated the Board will adopt the Superintendent’s 2019-2020 Proposed Budget and discuss the Capital Bond Proposal".
In an email to the school community, Superintendent Eric Byrne distributed a copy of the revised proposal that was shared last week that shows a reduction from the original $80 million to $73.4 million (see the detail and presentation below). In the note, Byrne said:
"I shared a variety of options with the Board, including detailed potential cost savings, scope and size reductions, and projects to consider tabling or removing from a future bond proposal… The Board is now considering several different options, including the potential for a new bond resolution on April 9 that would lead to a second community bond vote on June 11. The Board will be meeting again this coming Tuesday night, April 9, at 8:00 p.m. in Rye Middle School Multipurpose Room to continue the discussion. I invite you to join us that evening to learn about the next steps for the District’s capital needs."
New proposal – see full PDF. Also, watch last week's board meeting just below.
($6,617,638 proposed reduction)
Projects by Building (Original Bond) / (New Proposal)
Osborn $11,662,292 (original) / $10,724,722 (new)
Midland $16,867,004 / $16,304,752
Milton $3,320,328 / $3,094,754
Rye School of Leadership $2,068,572 / $1,985,026
Rye MS HS $46,071,804 / $41,263,108
Total $79,990,000 / $73,372,362
The Mark of Zorro
This week the Rye Record further reveals the previously hidden identities of Rye’s “Better Bond” debt vigilantes and carves out their now clearly demarked goals to save our non-native or naive resident brethren from self-victimization due to their own willful ignorance. The Record’s April 19, 2019 page A2 delivers our local Zorro’s welcome and warning in a column entitled “Join the Conversation on a Better Bond.”
“The Friend’s of a Better Bond sought to work out a compromise with the School Board but their voice, representing a majority of the voters, was treated with a polite nod. They were not heard. How about a bond half the size, with a shorter life, and an annual maintenance program designed to sustain the facilities? It could be followed by another bond or bonds, addressing the needs and priorities as determined at a future time.”
The revealed signers of this mark are all Rye political class members with whom I have historically had little in common and have in fact worked diligently to sunlight many of their prior municipal cover-up’s and dirty deeds. My neighbor, Mr. Dunn, to name one, sits on the so-called Rye City Board of Ethics, AKA The Whitewash Crew. They are transparency’s greatest nemesis and I am no member of their ranks. MyRye readers know I ride hard against this bunch but in this specific case they are delivering a message, a message that needs to be heard and heard without malice.
Most in Rye are I’m sure unaware that a 14% 2019 Westchester County sales tax increase is in the final stages of being approved in Albany. Sales tax as you know hits almost everything needed to sustain every household in Rye. The actual increase is not 1% as advertised but 14%.
Wake up everyone. It’s not what our rulers tell you, its what they don’t.
Z