I see the Madison Central School District has posted a list of absentee voting opportunities. Permit me to post the schedule hear in clean and simple text to spare you the trouble of clicking on the school's needlessly bandwidthy PDF:
| Date | Event | Location | Time |
| 12/20 | Middle School band/choir concert | High School Auditorium | 7:00 p.m. |
| 12/21 | Boys basketball | Cafeteria | 4:45 p.m. |
| 1/7 | Girls basketball | Cafeteria | 4:45 p.m. |
| 1/10 | Boys basketball | DSU Fieldhouse | 4:45 p.m. |
| 1/12 | Open voting | Elementary Commons | 12:45 p.m. |
| 1/13 | Girls basketball | DSU Fieldhouse | 5:00 p.m. |
| 1/15 | Gymnastics | Cafeteria | Noon |
| 1/17 | Forum | Cafeteria | 7:00 p.m. after Forum |
| 1/18 | Open voting | Elementary Commons | 3:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m. |
| 1/20 | Boys basketball | DSU Fieldhouse | 5:00 p.m. |
| 1/21 | Wrestling (Madison Square Garden) | Cafeteria | 6:00 p.m. |
| 1/25 | Forum | Cafeteria | 7:00 p.m. after Forum |
Dang—I already missed a couple!
A couple things occurred to me last night about the school district's early-voting scheme. First, the school can't conduct early voting at a basketball game... or at least not on the other side of the ticket table. Suppose concerned citizens want to observe the voting, as they are entitled by state law to do. Suppose they're on a tight budget and can't afford a ticket to the basketball game. If school business manager and election officer Cindy Callies sets up a voting table on paid side of the ticket booth, she creates a barrier to poll watchers, not to mention potential voters.
There can be no price of admission to access any polling place. That's why, in the above schedule, the polling during high school games is listed at the cafeteria or the auditorium. But there still had better not be any electioneering near that voting table!
Note also that it's a bit tough to make to observe the polls when the school district doesn't include a closing time for its early polls. Keeping democracy honest is hard work, but on January 20th, for instance, it would be nice to know if voting will run for just an hour or if I should pack a snadwich and expect to be there for four hours.
Absent from the school's new gym/renovation information site is a list of workplaces that have requested early voting sessions. If any such sessions are scheduled, we should expect similar public notification.
Note, business owners, that if you invite Mrs. Callies to hold early voting at your business, you'll need to open your doors to any person who wants to come in and watch or even vote. That's our right. You can't call Mrs. Callies and say, "I have five employees who want to vote; please bring five ballots down." If folks on the street hear that you're conducting an early vote at your office, and they want to drop in and vote at that time as well, you have to let them in, and Mrs. Callies has to bring enough ballots for such a contingency.
The school district has already lost one supporter with its gaming of the vote. I hope the school will compensate for its questionable vote-stacking by keeping the process as transparent as possible.
If the one supporter the school lost is you it is going to have about as much effect as your vote for SHS in the last election :)
Not I, Dr. Sweet. Check the link: it's my neighbor John Hess. Winning by cheating doesn't win stakeholders.
So your vote isn't lost. That's great news!
Anything is possible, John... but at the moment I'm pretty strongly in the No camp. Cut the new gym, and I'm in.
Of course 200 votes are already arguably lost, having voted early before having the chance to hear all the details through the campaign before Feb. 1....
I would think that as an educator concerned about the development of the whole student, as I know you are, that you would favor improving the facilities and opportunities for all disciplines.
I would think that someone proposing to improve education wouldn't use logical fallicies to further their position. One isn't against education if the choose not to support a 16 million dollar bond issue. You have created a false choice. For shame.
Win at any cost and scrape that last bit of idealism off our bones.
I share John Hess's concern about the lack of honesty in the vote-stacking scheme. John Sweet, I am concerned about such development. Our students appear to have a wide range of atheltic opportunities. They do not have enough AP courses. They do not have a gifted program. They have only one foreign language available. They do not have a fully active debate team. There are numerous ways in which their whole development is not being addressed. Building amulti-million gym will not improve those developments. Applying that money toward improved academic offerings will.
The money you are voting on cannot be applied to academics as it is capital, which can only be used for capital projects.
As I read the proposal the gym is but a part of the total package, which goes more for upgrading the facilities for academics, which need a roof over their heads, as well as improved indoor air quality and energy efficiency. There are studies that show a positive correlation between academic achievement and good facilities.
I saved $94K last year on 500K square feet implementing many of the same measures this proposal calls for, as I read it from a distance. Savings in energy is money that can be directed to the general fund and academics.
The gifted program went down years ago when the electorate failed to approve the first operating levy, as well as technology related courses. That vote resulted in $1M in reductions during several years. Where were the supporters of education on that one? The same people who say they support education today I am pretty sure didn't vote for that one either.
The only way you are going to add academic offerings is to increase the opt-out. It won't work to think you are going to cut back on gym sports, or any others, and use the money for world language, A.P., or gifted. As a matter of fact you are probably going to have to increase the opt-out just to keep what you have.
Academics and co-curricular need to co-exist. There are many things you can teach on the court, on the field, or cross country course, that you can't teach in the classroom. Many who haven't competed don't understand this. Using the gym as a wedge issue isn't in the best interests and still leaves the students holding the stick with inadequate facilities.
If you think there is a better plan out there, then present it. It's easy to armchair quarterback and shoot down the establishment's proposal without coming up with any original thinking yourself.
John,
I presented a different plan/approach several weeks ago in a letter to the editor(Madison paper) which was reprinted here at madville Times thanks to Cory. There is a better plan and we can accomplish our needs in a more prudent way. What Cory is trying to point out is that our prioities are not in the right place. When we place more dollars toward educators themselves and the day to day resources, we do more for students than we ever could with ultra fancy facilities. Problem is that the property tax system which education depends on so much of its finances is out of date and not able to service the needs of education. In your statement, you indicated support for the bond issue(more property taxes), opt out for programs(more property taxes). Well, the race horse(property tax payers) have about dropped dead. When you and many of the powerful economic and political interests in SD are willing to explore alternative funding, let me know. i will be there to work with you. There is too much wealth and other fiscal resources in this state not being tapped to help education to say that we have a funding problem for education. We just have a priority problem. We are willing in SD to let political leaders in this state sell kids short on education in order to preserve and uphold the "old order" -the rich and powerful. How about it everyone? Are we willing to be real advocates for education and demand changes. To pass a bond issue and say we have done our job for education is horseplay.
I guess I missed your proposal as there is a lot of content to sort through on this issue and I don't drill down to find it all. I will see if I can find it.
There are other ways to tax for public services. Problem is, what we have is what we have. And I don't see it changing. It's not up to me to worry about or change the tax system in South Dakota since I don't live there anymore. I now live in the tax affluent state of Minnesota where we rely on the boom and bust of state income taxes. Plus corporate income taxes, property taxes and sales tax. And I love it!:) And the state has a $6B deficit.
South Dakota is viewed as a low tax state with no income taxes, except on banks. Why can't South Dakota attract Fortune 500 Companies? I can tell you the answser I get, but many will be offended so I won't say it.
(John, please, don't sweat the offense: tell us why those Fortune 500 companies aren't coming!)
As you helped me learn, John, we should always have a Plan B. Here's Charlie's fine-arts-annex proposal here's my alternative construction schedule.
The learning benefits of athletics are overrated compared to the academic needs that aren't being met. There are things you can learn in a foreign language classroom that you can't learn throwing balls... and those things are more likely to raise your test scores, get you into college, and make you employable in an increasingly diverse America and a global economy.
Certainly building funds and classroom expenditures are different pots of money. But taxpayers don't have separate capital outlay and general fund budgets. The bond issue and the possible opt-out to make up for slashed state aid both come from the same pot -- us. The more we raise taxes to build the new gym and renovate the high school, the less we will have available to spend on teacher salaries and other general fund expenditures. I'm saying that instead of locking up $16.98 million (plus interest) in a building project, we should scale back the building cost by eliminating the luxury gym and focusing as much of the savings as we can afford on direct academic expenditures.
Let me just say that Minnesota (accurately) boasts about its educated workforce as a key economic driver for the state and maintaining its status with those Fortune 500 companies. The system of K-12 education, community colleges and other higher education institutions are often publicly cited as the key to providing economic success to the state.