LiveWell Community Awards Dinner

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Last night after braving a downpour, Dan and I went to the LiveWell Awards and Community Celebration Dinner. We attended as we’ve worked with the various groups to open up the Washington School for use by the public. They’ve been holding cooking classes, and using rooms for meetings, weight lifting, and Boy Scout meetings. The theater has been opened for the local folkloric dance group, El Fandango. Later on, we will be holding the Spanish Peaks International Celtic Music Festival concerts there. As it is the basement that is being used the most, we’ve started calling it the Washington Underground.

Dinner was good. Lasagna and salad with carrot cake brownies. I had salad and a brownie as I can’t eat cheese. It was still good, and (drum roll….) Organic. 🙂

Then it was time for the awards. I never get awards, so I didn’t expect one last night. They handed out the four awards mentioned in the program. Cindy Campbell started mentioning two people who deserved a Community Builders Award, and that they added two more awards for the night. To my surprise, she called my name and Mike Moore’s. He’s our superintendent for Huerfano RE-1. We both got the same award. 🙂 It was wonderful. We got a hat, a shopping bag and a gift card. It was so nice to be recognized for the work we’ve done to open up Washington Underground.

Graduation 2013

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Today was John Mall High School’s graduation. For a small town, it’s a big event. 31 seniors graduated this year. The center of the gym was filled with their families. Aunts, uncles, dads, moms, siblings and children. In the bleachers are all the friends and community members. Up near the stage on one side was the Board of Education and honoured guests. The staff and band sat on the other side. Morgan went with me and was up in the bleachers, watching a ceremony she skipped by going to college at 15.

At 10:30am, the band began to play Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance. Band has only recently returned to the district, and they will get better. I watched people flinch at the wrong notes at the same time they smiled. The seniors filed in and filled the seats on the stage to the sound of hoots, whistles, cheers and clapping.

We listened to speeches. We watched our foreign exchange student receive an honorary diploma. We clapped and cheered as scholarships were handed out for merit, public service, educational excellence and for overcoming obstacles.

We laughed and tried not to cry as the power point program shared pictures of the students as babies and then seniors. We smiled as it shared goofy pictures of school events as well as Prom, Homecoming and everyday classrooms.

Then it was time. As board president, it’s my duty to hand out diplomas to the students and shake their hands. I’m the point of transition from student to graduate. 31 nervous students. 30 hot and sticky or cold and clammy handshakes as I handed them their diplomas and wished them well. One diploma was handed out by a former board member to his niece. He thanked me for letting him honour her, and tried not to cry when he shook her hand and gave her the diploma.

Then it was over and caps flew in the air. They were graduates. All these young people celebrating their achievements  Some so tall when I remember them in diapers. Others so grown up, and poised.  As we moved out of the gym, we shook hands with friends, chatted with people and felt the collective sigh of relief.

Taxes and cuts and commissioners…. Oh My!

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I went to a County Commissioners meeting yesterday. Our superintendent was there too. Why? Well… a grocery story that opened a year ago, February 2nd, 2011, wanted a tax cut. Now, in general, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Unless you are the recipient of the monies that are gotten via that tax cut.

Their tax bill for the year was about $50K. According to law, new businesses can as for up to a 50% discount for up to 5 years. Usually this is asked for before they literally break ground. However, the local new grocery store is trying to get the tax cut after the year mark and after they’ve gotten their tax bill. Plus, you have to notify all the stake holders, which is anyone who receives funding via those taxes. At the moment, they are filing an abatement and the assessor is checking the tax records. This means that I get to go to the meeting next week too.

I was there with my school board president hat on. Reason… We get 49% of our funding via tax revenue from local sources. So, if you pay $100.00 in taxes, we receive $49.00 of that for the schools. Are you beginning to see why the school district might have an interest in taxes? We explained that out of $50K, we usually receive $25K in revenue. If they got their taxes cut in half, we’d only receive about $10K in tax income for the school district. That loss of $10K equals the salary of a custodian or an aide or 1/2 a teacher. Considering the budget issues that we are facing as one of the lowest funded districts, a $10K loss would be significant. We explained that to the commissioners and the grocery store.

Something that wasn’t said was the fact that the daughter of the grocery store owners works for the school district. Part time. The irony is that their win for a tax cut might literally cut their daughter’s salary right out of the budget.