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The severance tax plus property taxes would be pretty significant for the Pound -Appalachia area. Virtually all the severance tax in the county comes from these areas. The bulk of coal and gas properties are located in the Pound and Appalachia areas. One must remember you are talking about half of the total geographic area of Wise County.
I am talking about the Appalachia and Pound school service districts and voting areas- most of District One and part of District Two. The corporate limits of the towns do not enter into the picture.
Consolidation is the only answer here. It isn't a popular answer but it is economically and logically the correct one.
And what are they going to do, provide rescue, fire, police, etc? Look its nice to say do these things, but there is a lot to do when someone withdraws. Clinchco became an official 'town' but all the related costs and such made them give up their charter. Not saying something like that couldn't be done, but there is a lot more to it than just backing out. I wonder if Norton could survive if not for Big Wally.
Believe Castlewood gave it up not Clinchco. Norton was able to support a school system for years before Walmart. Jenkins and Pineville are still able to support a school system with less resources than Appalachia and Pound.
I agree, with the severance tax that we would finally be able to use in the town that it came from and not paying for something in BSG we could do quite a bit with our schools. As for voting to see what the public wants, I do not think this is the right course of action because everyone has said it and i do agree, the highschoolers now would be the ones picking up most of the bill for these plans either way they go and most of them are not old enough to vote, but dont you think thier opinions matter since it's thier pocketbooks that would be affected the most?
Instead of using 110 million to fix up the old POS schools we have now why dont we just put a brand new ( the cost would only be about 30 to 50 millon at most) and move the schools to a centalized location and have a brand new school for everyone to brag about and save the tax payers (me and you)some hard earned money?
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They will end up spending as little as possible to keep 'community pride' alive. The WCSB will either draft another $300 000 'study' to see if they can get by doing just the bare minimum to keep the buildings in working order for another 10-15 years OR they will just stand pat because they're afraid to broach the hated consolidation topic.
If they opt for the former (and I'm betting they will), another set of board members will be going down this same road in 15 years. And once again the Appalachias and Pounds of the world will whine whine whine about wanting to keep their tiny schools open.
If these people are so dead set on keeping their precious 'community pride', then why not incorporate and have the town take control of their school system. Then those people (and only those people) can shell out the money to keep their 'community pride' and let the rest of the county move into the 21st century.
Yeah, let's spend $100+ million 'renovating' six antiquated structures so we can spend $300+ million in 25 years to build new schools.
If nothing else, build new schools one at a time. Start with the consolidated Wise/Pound. Then Appalachia/Powell Valley, then St Paul/Coeburn.
I've said it before, but I am willing to pay an extra few $$ in taxes IF they consolidate and build new schools. I am not willing to do the same just to keep 6 schools open in the name of 'community pride'.
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[/ QUOTE ]If the tax money went back where it came from, Appy could have a room per student. Close them all or keep them all, those are the only two choices. And you talk about others whining? [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]
and what centralized location would that be? Move Pound to Wise? Appalachia to Powell valley? Or how about we do it the other way around? Move Wise and Powell Valley students to the smaller communities? No we couldnt have that now could we. Half the parents in the county would be beating down the doors to the school board office to complain.
I think if, or should I say when, they do consolidate it needs to be in 2 or 3 schools. At least 2 schools because we don't want the travel problems Lee High has with kids being on the bus extremely early and extrememly late trying to run all over the county.