Yeah, now it’s kind of a weak headline when last time it was a little inventive dating back to a time when school politics were a big thing and my dad ran for the board because the school district needed a new sheriff and more than a few deputies. 

So does Mesa County. I’ve been here 21 years and have one observation about Mesa County School District 51 and its leadership: I can’t believe how much worse it’s gotten.  

Let’s go right to the 50-year-old elephant in the room: the disastrous attempts to fix the single biggest problem facing the district, the replacement of Grand Junction High School. Let me get two things out in the open right away because I know I’ll take hits from some because they’ve already decided my intent here is to insult every teacher and employee of D51. Perhaps there are three things. 

First, this isn’t an attack on the employees, teachers or principles working every day to educate our kids. Like ANY profession, there are lots of great people doing a great job. But also like any profession, there’s a percentage that doesn’t do a good job. Every last one of us know a few we could put into this category. The teacher you have to email three or four times to get a response. The teacher who communicates through your child instead of to you after you’ve reached out. The administrator who backs the bully as much as your kid being bullied. The idiotic, offensive assignments that come into your home. And tell me you agree with the board across the board. If any of these ring a bell, you and I parent similarly.  

Second, I’m all in favor of replacing GJHS and have been since day one. I just haven’t seen a proposal that puts the needs of students, taxpayers and Mesa County first in a fiscally responsible manner.  

This brings me to my last point — D51’s abysmal failure over 50 years to replace its most urgent need. I can’t speak to the first 30 years of neglect in doing its job, but I can to the last 21. As I’ve watched D51’s efforts, all I’ve seen are proposals to make taxpayers pay for all the dreams of D51 instead of a straight-line proposal to replace GJHS. If you have, please show me. Now you might say, “Hey Craig, this one is.” And you’d be wrong. While the language says every dollar goes to the school and the tax sunsets once paid, what it doesn’t say is we’d be paying for a high school which costs at a minimum double the average cost of high schools being built across the country — even in today’s government-created, COVID economy.
One could argue for the money D51 lusts to spend on ONE building it could build three. Given how D51 manages buildings and maintenance, I guarantee we need at least three. 

If this bond measure passes, I’ll guarantee another thing: District 51 will NEVER ever again budget for any needs it has for capital or special projects. It will use every penny for general and administrative costs and then come to taxpayers to pay anything it considers above and beyond. How do I know this? Please show me any savings account with even a penny to go towards paying for a new GJHS. The truth is, D51 had no intention of building a new high school out of its budget. This is how D51 does, and has done, business since I’ve been here. 

And community leaders — many of whom I like, am friends with and agree with most of the time — telling you this is a good deal should tell you one thing. It’s a bad deal. Using leaders who’ve never met a tax dollar they didn’t think of spending first instead of saving, others who believe certain folks and businesses should be given special treatment and insiders who’ve never been told no should be huge red flags. 

We need to elect folks who want to change the direction of D51 and its grades, finances and vision while putting students first. We need Andrea Haitz, Will Jones and Angela Lema as new voices to move D51 in this direction. We don’t need more of the same from those who want politics and other personal indoctrination in the classroom, who erase their social media history to hide radical relationships or say they aren’t part of a bloc when they’re running as part of a bloc while already being part of the current problem. Union-backed candidates (especially those who inappropriately use the union and D51 logos on their ads) are the root of the problem, not the solution. And we’ve been electing all too many of them.  

As for the rest of my ballot, like the previous GJHS proposals, it’s always no. There’s only one amendment to the Colorado Constitution I will ever vote for: The one that states ALL unconstitutional law in the state must be rescinded forthwith along with any other laws those laws touch.  

Sadly, that amendment will never be on a ballot in my lifetime as surely as all we’ll see is bond demand after bond demand from D51 should this boondoggle pass. Don’t let negligence sway you to a bad vote. Make yours count.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of the Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com.