The School--A Fair Question

One of the people on the blog contact list passed this question on to me, and I decided that it was worth putting out there, along with my response.

Here's the whole thing:

To me:  Can I ask just one question here?  This building is owned by Mantua Township and the trustees when they bought it took on the responsibility for maintaining it.  Why is anyone else's money being used for something for which they are obligated.  I don't know how to answer that question as it was proposed to me.

In response:  Well, it's a fair question.

Part of what we are doing is working to publicize and crystallize the feelings of what Lynn Harvey calls "the silent majority":  that the school is a treasure worth saving.  Unless we start that before there is a clear threat, we will be left at the starting gate.  The building cannot be sold while money is still owed on it, but it will be paid off (I believe) next year.  It was purchased in 2004, with a ten-year payoff schedule.

I believe that it can then be sold by a motion, a second, and a vote.  One of the trustees was sponsored by someone who is loudly hostile to the school and also to Vic and, before the election, to Mark--two honest, conscientious people who could not be intimidated or bullied into making unethical decisions or decisions favoring individual, personal interests.  That is not mere opinion, but observation.  I attended meeting after meeting in which those two men were brutally hounded, much of it about the school. 

The other trustee came into office saying that he would work to get us into the old school building but then changed within a few months and said that if the price was right, he would vote to sell it.  Subsequently, as support for the building has become more apparent, he has made statements that seem more favorable to keeping and using the building.  Those who have been at most of the meetings and who support the school are hopeful but skeptical.

People only give money to causes they believe in, so the money that The Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., is working to raise is a better gauge of attitudes than just high-sounding sentiment.

Furthermore, we are not doing anything new.  The original Mantua Restoration Society, Inc., was chartered in 1977 for the stated purpose of renovating the Grange Hall and the Civic Center.  The members systematically raised something like $30,000 for the project.  The difference between then and now is that the original group had the cooperation--to the tune of some matching funds--of the trustees at the time.  The work was done completely with volunteers, if I am correct.

Those people--both residents and trustees--had a clear sense of the value of the buildings to the community.  Josephine Leitzow was the treasurer, and Pat Magyarics and Eric Hummel were in that group as well.  They may have been board members, in fact.  John Vechery and Roger Hurd were among the people who worked on the actual renovations.  John supervised a CETA group of reprobates who put a foundation under the Grange Hall (now the Township Hall.)  I think the group Roger worked with built the stage in the Civic Center, but I am not quite sure about that. I do know that when one of the present critics put forth the notion of ripping out the stage in the Civic Center and building offices in that area, Roger was the person who knew how everything was constructed and said specifically why that idea was a really bad one.  (He made those remarks at the special meeting on May 31 to problem solve about the school; something like a transcript of that is in an earlier blog post, if you want to check.)

So there is a precedent for our raising money to do work on a building that the trustees own.  In theory, they own it in trust (after all, "trustee" means "one who is trusted") for all of us, for the good of the township and its residents.  Raising money for the school building is a way of taking care of ourselves and what is important to us rather than expecting someone else to take care of us.

The present State of Ohio administration has cut funding to local governments, and those cuts will continue.  I am not quite sure what the purpose is for doing that, other than to create a reputation among the populace of fiscal responsibility on the part of the governor.  Whoever controls the purse controls.  Period.  So what the agenda is I don't know, except that it could force townships and other small governments into regional entities instead of individual ones--and townships would still come last.  That is my opinion, or maybe my fear.  There is one person I can ask about all of that if I can get a response from him.  Well, maybe two.  Janet Esposito should have some idea of what's going on.  [Blogger's note:  I have not done that yet.  If and when I manage the time for it, I will put it into the blog also.]

So we are having to do more with less, and roads always need attention (and money--paving is expensive.)  But roads are visible to everyone and have all kinds of public relations value--look at how our new trustees are taking care of us.  Of course in three to five years the roads will be deteriorating again because that is the nature of the beast.  And never mind what is being done to the township's carefully built, solid  fiscal base.  If the money is all spent on the roads, the school goes begging.

There is money in an account to use for the school--enough to do at least two of the large rooms on the first floor, and those rooms could accommodate both the fiscal officer's operations and those of Zoning.

The Township does not own large parks or have a police department.  It owns buildings, two of which--the Township Hall and the Civic Center--are already on the National Register of Historic Places.  The third, the school, as many to most people in the Township know, is in the process of nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.  Someone at the Potato Festival over the weekend described once driving all over New England on a vacation, looking for the perfect New England green--and found it upon coming home to Mantua Center.

That is all worth something, and if the trustees say that the school can't be worked on because there is no more money, we can say "au contraire.  Here is the money.  We value this place and these buildings. We want these buildings--all three of them."

So we are working to raise the money, and we are raising money.  And awareness, apparently.