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QuickTake:
The district on the coast in western Lane County is asking voters to approve a $139 million bond. Supporters say the benefits are worth the cost, but others say it's extravagant.
The Siuslaw School District in western Lane County is asking voters to approve a bond to build a new high school and renovate part of the elementary school.
The 30-year bond would cover $139 million of the $145 million project. If the bond measure passes this May, the district would receive an additional $6 million from the Oregon School Capital Improvement Matching Program.
The bulk of the bond would be used to replace the existing high school, built in 1970. A district committee spent two years studying the issue before putting together the plan to build a new school that would include structural upgrades and improvements such as a dedicated cafeteria, a working auditorium, and larger classrooms, committee members said. The new building would also meet seismic codes, which didn’t exist in 1970.
About $13 million of the bond goes toward renovating the oldest section of the elementary school, adding four classrooms to that building.
The last two bond measures, one in 2016 and the other in 2018, were defeated by voters.
Supporters of the bond argue it is past time to replace the high school. They point to seismic safety and an aging heating and cooling system that failed in December 2024, shutting the school down for four days.
The high school uses 40% of the district’s entire maintenance budget. Classrooms are undersized for modern teaching methods, and several of the building’s classrooms were not designed to be classrooms.
Supporters also point to the lack of a dedicated cafeteria, which pushes most students off campus for lunch, contributing to attendance problems.
David Twombly, 60, is a long-time Florence resident whose children and now grandchildren have attended the district schools. He is a vocal critic of the project, which he believes is too expensive for the community. Twombly called the ask for an auditorium — and the entire project — extravagant.
“We don’t need a new auditorium. We don’t need a cafeteria,” Twombly said. He said the district should fix the existing school with new heating and cooling, seismic retrofitting, and plumbing repairs.
“Clean the place up, and you can have a perfectly functional school for significantly less money,” he said.
Advocates for the bond disagree, of course.
“Most of the building systems are getting close to their useful lifespan,” Curt Wilson, an architect based in Eugene, said. Wilson consulted on the facilities committee’s deliberations and worked with a team of engineers to study the existing school.
In addition to the aging systems, the school no longer meets the district’s needs, he said.
The $139 million bond will cost taxpayers in the district $2.75 per $1,000 of assessed property value. For a $450,000 home, that would be about $1,237 a year.
Twombly said these higher costs will price people out of the housing market.
Everyone agrees it is a lot of money. But supporters say the value of a new school justifies the cost. They argue a new building is good for students and sends a positive signal to the community, students and anyone considering the move to Florence. Some studies have shown that large investments in new school buildings can raise test scores.
For Pat Burke, 79, a Florence-area retiree, this will be an easy choice to make. Burke and her husband live on a fixed income, primarily from Social Security. The bond will cost them about $1,000 a year, she said.
But if the bond passes, they will find the money, Burke said.
“I think that this is really important for the kids in this region. We are failing them dismally,” Burke said. “We are both can-do people, and if it means going to Grocery Outlet and buying everything that has a green sticker on it because it’s $2 off. We’ll do it.”
