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721 East Franklin Street <br />Chapel Hill, NC 27514 <br />February 3, 1992 <br />Memo to: Orange County Commissioners: <br />Chairperson, Moses Carey, Jr. <br />Vice Chairperson, Stephen Halklotis <br />Alice M. Gordon <br />Veria C. Insko <br />Don Willhoit <br />From: Douglas T. Breeden &WY <br />Member, Chapel Hill- Carrboro School Board <br />Ike: School bond amount and timing. <br />First, I want to sincerely thank you all for allowing us to have such input into your <br />deliberations on the school bond. You have been generous with your time and patient <br />as our school boards went through the difficult process of forging a consensus. <br />I am still very pleased with the consensus that we reached in our joint meetings. <br />As you consider the issues of school bond amount and timing tonight, I'd like to strongly <br />encourage you to: <br />(1) keep the bond amount at the $52 million level for the first phase, and <br />(2) go ahead with a referendum in May, 1992. <br />The poll results were quite encouraging about the voters' understanding of our <br />needs for space and -their willingness to spend prudent amounts to begin to deal with <br />those needs. However, for two reasons I would resist the urge to increase the bond <br />amount. First, the Orange County School Board had a difficult time getting to support for <br />even this level and split of the bond. I value their support and believe that we need their <br />strong support to pass the bond by a significant amount and in most areas of our county. <br />Secondly, I think that some voters would feel that we are being a bit frivolous now in <br />significantly increasing the bond amount, They know that we have worked hard to find <br />a compromise to a lower amount that we can (painfully) live with, and they appreciate that <br />effort. Let's not lose their trust by changing it much. <br />My final point on the amount is that I think you should resist any urges to reduce <br />it at all, e.g., to the $49 million level. We have reduced our budgets for these schools at <br />least three times, and they are really bare bones. Reducing the bond amount further <br />would cause terrible choices and problems_ it would delay some construction that really <br />must be done the first time, or induce choices that voters and we would later regret. <br />