Discussion over D91 school bond gets heated

A Pizza and Politics discussion hosted by the Bonneville Democrats got a bit heated Saturday afternoon over the Idaho Falls School District 91 school bond.

The school district is proposing a two-tiered, $99.5 million bond. The first tier would cost $86.2 million and would pay for a new Idaho Falls High School, renovations to Skyline High School, and turn the current Idaho Falls High School into a career technical school. The second is $13.5 million and would add a performing arts center at Skyline and create a new gym and fine arts space.

Each side had a representative to talk about the bond and take questions from the audience. One of the biggest topics of discussion was whether Idaho Falls even needs a new high school, or if the existing one could just be renovated. Teachers from District 91 said they can’t provide students with what they need with a remodel and they must invest in students and their future.

“They are dark, they are dank, I have worked in every single one of them. I’ve never worked in a new building in my whole life and those kids deserve a big shiny building,” said Patricia Desautel, a retired D91 teacher.

Those against the bond say moving the high school to a new location south of town changes the dynamics of the city and neighborhoods around the high school. They think it would be more fiscally responsible to remodel the school.

“We feel like preserving the IF high school as a high school can be done and it will preserve the vibrancy of those neighborhoods,” said Lisa Keller with the D91 Taxpayers.

Another topic of discussion was the “no-bid bond” process the school district used to hire a general contractor. The school district says they asked for a request for qualifications from contractors and architects, which is the industry standard way of doing it. They will bid out all of the other building processes that go with the construction.

“Then send out an RFQ so a request for qualifications, professional qualifications, and had architects submit their plans,” said Lisa Burtenshaw, a D91 school board member. “We had probably five architects submit and we interviewed three.”

The bond opposition says doing it this way is not right. They believe bidding it out to general contractors and architects could have resulted in a cheaper bond.

“We kinda think that this is like, let’s be honest, we kind of think this is crone capitalism,” Keller said. “That they did not give bids to award the contracts to who was going to be construction manager and who was going to be the architect and who was going to be the bonding company. They asked for a request for qualifications, which is totally legal, not necessarily wise, but legal.”

This bond comes after the previous $110 million bond failed in November. The bond election takes place on Aug. 28.