SOUTH POINT – South Point School District voters will get one more chance to say yes before more than $23 million slips out of their hands.

Wednesday, May 10, 2000

SOUTH POINT – South Point School District voters will get one more chance to say yes before more than $23 million slips out of their hands.

In a 4-1 decision, South Point Board of Education members voted to have a special election in August at their regular May meeting Monday, board member Bernie Belville said.

"We decided to put the levy on the ballot," Belville said. "I feel that anytime somebody’s going to give you $3 for every $1, that’s a pretty good deal. I feel we needed to give it every shot we can for the community."

South Point area residents are required to pass a local property tax levy, which would contribute about $7.1 million to the new school project, before the Ohio School Facilities Commission will give the district use of state building assistance dollars.

The 4.84-mill property tax levy has failed twice, once in November and once in March.

Districts are only given three chances at the state dollars before they are offered to another of the more than 600 school districts in the State of Ohio, Belville said.

"To me, I can’t see where this is a bad deal," he said. "(Whether or not the levy will pass this time), that’s something you don’t know. It’s gone down twice, but we’ll work hard and try to get to people who don’t have all the facts."

Even though having a special election will cost the district extra dollars, it’s worth it, Belville said.

"At least this way we give the community every chance to get the money," he said.

And the new schools – which would include a new high school and consolidated elementary school, as well as the remodeling of the current high school – are needed in the district, Belville said.

"Looking at them from the outside, the building is not in bad shape, but the electrical system is," he said. "The buildings are 40 and 60 years old. It’s time to look at replacing them. I wouldn’t go as far as to say they are in terrible shape, but they definitely need a lot of work done on them."

Remodeling is not an option, however, Belville added.

"You’re looking at buildings where the middle school is 60 years old and the elementary school is 40 years old," he said. "You can only remodel so much and even then you would get close to the cost a new building would cost you."

Schools are a community’s responsibility, not just the responsibility of teachers and parents, Belville said.

"I attended the schools here when they were new back in the early 1960s," Belville said. "Somebody thought enough of me to buy new schools and put them up. I thought for the future, I need to do the same thing for the children. We need to keep up and make sure the children in the future have new schools."