This isn’t a freakin mind control game. Our schools need maintenance and upgrades. Period.

Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

^^I agree with this. If enough people vote no, it is a clear message. Sort of like when Vihstadt got into office. The county board still had enough votes for the streetcar but immediately canceled it after he won.

I see a lot of people in this thread talking about how they have no choice but to vote yes because the alternative is worse. I will relate here some advice my father once gave me:

All your life, he said, people are going to try to control you. They're going to do it by controlling the alternatives you get to chose between. Usually this means a "good" choice, and a "bad" choice. The "good" choice involves a bit of a raw deal for you, but it takes care of your essentials. The "bad" choice is objectively worse for you, but only because the people in charge made it that way. The "good" choice will be a budget with tax increases they claim are necessary (but which also protects their pet projects and personal fiefdoms). The "bad" choice will involve cutting police and firefighters because gosh there's just no where else to find efficiencies. Alternatively, (my father was a union guy) management will offer a sub-inflation COLA for next year despite record profits, because they know a strike would be more expensive than the additional salary increase the union wants.

This is what people do when they need you but they can't control you. They think that if they can just control your choices then you will act perfectly rationally every time and make the choice they want you to. They want you to accept their cr@p sandwich every time rather than go hungry. But what you have to remember is that the "bad" choice hurts them as much or more than it hurts you. That's why they try so hard to stack the deck against it.

So every once in a while you have to take the objectively "bad" choice, just to remind the people in charge that they still need you to get what they want. Sometimes you have to be willing to accept a bit of pain or misery just to remind them that next time, the most rational thing is to give people better choices rather than stack the deck.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused. Vote no because we don't need the career center project? What happens next? Seems like short-sighted thinking. You don't magically get a fourth high school by refusing to fund the career center, which is a part-time and full-time high school and gets expanded with the bond funding.

Exactly. I wanted a fourth high school too but it's not going to happen. Voting down the career center project isn't going to help things.

And this is why nothing changes. The board banks on this to get what they want.

So what do you see happening if the bond doesn't pass. How exactly does that help our schools?

I see them realizing that they can't half-@ss their planning process anymore and going back to the drawing board to create a more thorough, comprehensive plan that voters would approve.

How much more money and time will that cost exactly?

How is that re-planning being funded?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused. Vote no because we don't need the career center project? What happens next? Seems like short-sighted thinking. You don't magically get a fourth high school by refusing to fund the career center, which is a part-time and full-time high school and gets expanded with the bond funding.

Exactly. I wanted a fourth high school too but it's not going to happen. Voting down the career center project isn't going to help things.

And this is why nothing changes. The board banks on this to get what they want.

So what do you see happening if the bond doesn't pass. How exactly does that help our schools?

I see them realizing that they can't half-@ss their planning process anymore and going back to the drawing board to create a more thorough, comprehensive plan that voters would approve.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused. Vote no because we don't need the career center project? What happens next? Seems like short-sighted thinking. You don't magically get a fourth high school by refusing to fund the career center, which is a part-time and full-time high school and gets expanded with the bond funding.

Exactly. I wanted a fourth high school too but it's not going to happen. Voting down the career center project isn't going to help things.

And this is why nothing changes. The board banks on this to get what they want.

So what do you see happening if the bond doesn't pass. How exactly does that help our schools?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just want to point out that the bond also contains money to build security vestibules in a number of schools. This will make it so that school entryways are more secure and folks can't bypass the office when entering the schools.

That’s about $17 million of a $160 million bond. The bond is going to pass and schools will get the security vestibules. But we can’t afford the career center project as planned. Be prepared to have your taxes go up.

Yup. Tax the people because the school board cannot hire or plan efficiently. I just cannot afford to live here anymore.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm confused. Vote no because we don't need the career center project? What happens next? Seems like short-sighted thinking. You don't magically get a fourth high school by refusing to fund the career center, which is a part-time and full-time high school and gets expanded with the bond funding.

Exactly. I wanted a fourth high school too but it's not going to happen. Voting down the career center project isn't going to help things.

And this is why nothing changes. The board banks on this to get what they want.

YES.

I'd rather pay to inefficiently update our old nasty school buildings than efficiently do nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just want to point out that the bond also contains money to build security vestibules in a number of schools. This will make it so that school entryways are more secure and folks can't bypass the office when entering the schools.

That’s about $17 million of a $160 million bond. The bond is going to pass and schools will get the security vestibules. But we can’t afford the career center project as planned. Be prepared to have your taxes go up.

Great. Let's properly fund schools - just like places that have good schools do.

Anonymous wrote:Just want to point out that the bond also contains money to build security vestibules in a number of schools. This will make it so that school entryways are more secure and folks can't bypass the office when entering the schools.

That’s about $17 million of a $160 million bond. The bond is going to pass and schools will get the security vestibules. But we can’t afford the career center project as planned. Be prepared to have your taxes go up.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Where can Arlington place a 4th High School (if not Kenmore or the old hospital complex)... isn't THAT the issue?

No, the issue is that they CAN place a 4th high school at Kenmore but WON'T.

The County hired transportation consultants that said it won’t work. And the neighbors said no way. So those are the groups you would need to convince.

Why do the neighbors get to vote? Seriously? And why is traffic so extra super bad around Kenmore? I call BS on the whole thing.

Do you regularly drive around Kenmore? Carlin Springs is a logjam. The only entrance to the school is off S. 2nd Street and it's a cluster generally.
Because it's on the Fairfax line, you need to involve them in making road changes. And Route 50 is governed by VDOT.

So you do the work that needs to be done to get it done. So what that it has to involve FxCo and VDOT? APS always said it would "take too long" because of that and they needed additional capacity for schools "now." Well, they just keep squandering away even more time by not even beginning the effort to make it work.

DP. Fairfax has already said no to this.

Then they pressure Fairfax or come up with another way to do it orr another location. Throwing up your hands isn't an option.

LOL, what leverage do you think APS has with Fairfax to make them agree to widen roads in a residential neighborhood to accommodate buses out the other side of the Kenmore/Carlin Springs parcel?

Just want to point out that the bond also contains money to build security vestibules in a number of schools. This will make it so that school entryways are more secure and folks can't bypass the office when entering the schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, if they had to go back to scratch on CC, they could renovate the existing building to meet the current need in a way that does not preclude a 4th HS there at a later date. If we do this now, we spend all our money for the foreseeable future and there is no other site. But I do feel really bad for all the CC kids, who have gotten screwed over repeatedly due to APS' poor planning.

So you feel bad for the Career Center students but not bad enough to support their new building because you want to save money for a building for your kids. Hmm...

Oh honey, my last APS kid is a senior. I have no horse in this race. Just an Arlington taxpayer who is not thrilled about the waste of money. I know the bond will pass. But the building still may not be built, because APS really can't afford it at current costs. That's what killed the last project, too. Don't blame me. This is all on APS. If they had scoped it right from the start, it would be built by now.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Actually, if they had to go back to scratch on CC, they could renovate the existing building to meet the current need in a way that does not preclude a 4th HS there at a later date. If we do this now, we spend all our money for the foreseeable future and there is no other site. But I do feel really bad for all the CC kids, who have gotten screwed over repeatedly due to APS' poor planning.

So you feel bad for the Career Center students but not bad enough to support their new building because you want to save money for a building for your kids. Hmm...

Oh honey, my last APS kid is a senior. I have no horse in this race. Just an Arlington taxpayer who is not thrilled about the waste of money. I know the bond will pass. But the building still may not be built, because APS really can't afford it at current costs. That's what killed the last project, too. Don't blame me. This is all on APS. If they had scoped it right from the start, it would be built by now.