CAMDEN, Maine — Leaders of the Camden area schools were divided Wednesday night on how to proceed following the rejection by voters of borrowing $28 million for a new middle school.
Some board members said the proposal or a revised similar package could be put out to voters again while others said the vote was clear and that the district now had to focus on spending money on the current Camden-Rockport Middle School.
The $28 million bond referendum failed at the polls Tuesday night by a total of 946 no votes to 668 yes. Residents of both Camden (548 no to 435 yes) and Rockport (398-233) rejected the proposal.
The board took no action but the issue will be on its March agenda.
School Administrative District 28 Board Chairman Matthew Dailey of Camden said the results were very, very clear that residents were not in favor of a new middle school. He said another referendum this year should not be considered.
“We have to be fully committed to this building,” Dailey said about the current middle school where the board met Wednesday night for its regular monthly meeting.
Board member Tori Manzi of Camden suggested another referendum be considered in November. She said one criticism of this week’s referendum was the timing and some people felt that not enough time was given to residents for a discussion on why the new school was needed.
Manzi said, however, that a lot of opposition stemmed from misinformation put out by the Camden Select Board. She said that during a debate with a Select Board member, he incorrectly said the school board recently spent $6 million to renovate the old middle school when it was $1.8 million more than 10 years ago. She said the member also incorrectly stated that the district was recruiting students from outside the country to keep its enrollment up.
Instead of putting out the same $28 million proposal, Manzi said, the board could focus on only a new middle school and drop plans to spend money on renovating the bus barn and the Mary E. Taylor portion of the current middle school that would then have been used for administrative offices, adult and alternative education. That would reduce the cost to $23 million, she said.
Board member Kristin Collins of Camden said the school board needs to bring the select board members in on future discussions of a new school.
Board Vice Chairman John Lewis of Camden said people were not informed. He said he also took the results as a vote of no confidence in the board. He said he felt initially that all board members should resign in response to the rejection of the new school.
Lewis said the rejection of the new school will result in what the board said would happen — wasting millions of dollars on an old building.
Board members complained that opponents said there was little public information about the need for a new school yet the board has held public meetings and a citizen committee meeting regularly over the past several years.
Heather Mackey, a former Parent Teacher Association president who was in the audience, said the board should include a couple million dollars in the annual school district budget each year for repairs of the current middle school to show voters what their rejection of the new school means.
She said the vote was an anti-child one. She said this rejection was similar to the rejection by Rockport of a new library last year.
Dale Landrith Sr. of Rockport disputed that assertion and said instead it was simply people saying they could not afford $28 million plus millions of dollars in interest. Landrith said the board should also not put millions into the budget each year for repairs or the budgets will be rejected as well.
“The message is that we can’t afford it,” he said.