This whole half cent tax/new high school in Monrovia thing is really getting absurd.  First Madison County Commissioner Dale Strong opposed passing a half cent sales tax increase.  He demanded that the school board place a new high school that would be built with the revenue where he wants it, not where the school board wants it.  Like a man in an old western who is told to dance as a cowboy shoots at his feet, the school board obliged.  Last night they held a meeting to discuss the newly proposed location and parents didn’t like it one bit.

A public meeting Thursday night about the Harvest-Monrovia area’s next high school found little support for the site that was thought to be the leading contender.

…

But several parents said Thursday that they don’t think Monrovia’s clogged, two-lane roads can handle another large school. The four schools lining the community’s main drag, Jeff Road, have a combined enrollment of nearly 4,700 students.

Other parents said they have a hard time trusting the school board after some members promised not to build a ninth-grade school beside Sparkman but did anyway.

A man who transferred from St. Louis during the last round of military base closures got perhaps the loudest applause of the evening for suggesting a special school property tax that would apply only to the Harvest-Monrovia area.

Monrovia residents supported several past attempts to raise property taxes to improve schools, but the tax lost by wide margins in other communities.

The last two paragraphs show that these residents - at least the ones with kids - are willing to bear the tax burden themselves.  Maybe they should think about incorporating.

In any event, the tax increase appears to be back on the shelf for now.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, March 16th, 2007 at 5:10 am and is filed under Madison County. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.