Vote today
December 4th, 2007 by 
Alica
The polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today. Will you vote for or against the $23 million school bond issue?
Did you graduate from Brandon Valley High School? Did your spouse or children?
I am a 1975 BVHS graduate. My husband is Class of 1970, and my kids graduated from BVHS in 1996 and 1998.
Do you have kids in the school system now?
Posted in Uncategorized | 
December 4th, 2007 at 8:46 am
For. Brandon Valley is known even on the other side of the State as an excellent school system. I trust the board’s judgment about our district’s growth needs. BVHS ‘80 - one child BVHS ‘07, two more to go.
December 4th, 2007 at 11:15 am
I’m voting for this. I graduated last spring, and I know from first hand experience that all of the proposed improvements that will come from this bond will be for the best. VOTE YES!
December 4th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I am not a Brandon Grad, but have a child in the District and I am voting YES
December 4th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
My only question is this, if the gyms are so over-utilized, why can I drive by RBE nearly every night at 6:30 and see that the place is vacated? I’m not buying the gym over utilization line. Show me the schedule that shows that the gyms are over utilized.
December 5th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Anon:
I believe there is a sign out list for all the gyms if you truely would like to see the usage.
Did you hear how many 7th grade BB players signed up? The answer was 68. That is more than some schools total population.
There are about 168 school districts in the state of SD. How many of them have 300 or less? I recall about 25-30%
of the districts. We have 250+ just in SEVENTH grade.
The state should work on closing those schools and redistribute the aid to the rest of the schools. (very general statement w/ many exceptions ie: NW SD)
CONGRATULATIONS to the bond committee , school board , and ALL staff on the passage of this bond. I know from experience that you will be good stewards of our tax dollars.
December 5th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Todd, just a question that maybe you can answer in your infinite wisdom. Watertown, SD is a town of 22,000 people approximately. Their high school has ONE, yes, ONE main gym. Why do we need three? I tell ya why, cause Randy Marso sold this BS on the school committe. This bond passed by 1%, which is a bunch of crap. And I also wonder just how many $100 K properties this town has, since that is the model used to tell the people how much their taxes will go up. No bond should ever pass the first time around. How many times do people that are educated and successful buy the first car they look at, or take a loan from the first lender they have researced. Look at Harrisburg, at least that community was smart enough to scale things back and make the needed cuts. They will still get the facility needed, and pay less. I guess the thoughts in Brandon are, just pay for it later. Somebody should start thinking a little bit around this city, especially the city government.
December 5th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Anon:
First of all ask my wife if I have infinite wisdom and the answer is NO!! (haha)
Do you know that H2o uses a civic center ( 1 main gym , 1 auxillary gym , boys/girls club which includes pool and racquet ball courts attached w/ 2 more gyms, weight rooms ) for their activities. It is the size of a small arena.
H20 is in the early planning stages of an activities COMPLEX to be built w/in the next few years. They are waiting for some current debt to drop off then they can finance w/ capital outlay certificates (our PAC was built this way & TRANSPORTATION FACILITY was payed for w/ available capital outlay cash ) w/out a vote by the taxpayers if the board decides that direction.
I dont disagree on the analogies of 100k house. But the American consumer gets that stuff all the time. Gas is currently priced @ three dollars and 12.9 cents. IT IS ALL ABOUT ROUNDING!! haha
Harrisburg did reject the proposal a few times but they had to have such a large bond to play catch up for lack of planning by the decision makers. BVSD has never lacked foresight BUT that is what helps us be very competitive / successful.
A final vote of 60.9% versus 39.1% is still a LARGE difference. Approximately 400 + votes. The majority of people are supportive of the decision.
Finally, do you think the Brandon city leaders will ever get 60%+ to agree on ambulance issue , Sneakers or Chief of Police? I bet they would love that kind of margin.
Thanks for the friendly discussion.
December 5th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Whoa #6. You may not be happy with the outcome of the vote yesterday but the people of Brandon spoke (those that voted anyway).
Your comments on Watertown are incorrect (thanks Todd for the correct info). It is also to be noted that Watertown is a much different community than Brandon. Watertown has a lot of industry in comparasin to Brandon (private support $$$ for gyms, etc.). Brandon also has a MUCH younger population base and really is a bedroom community.
Your comments regarding Randy Marso are unfair. He has worked tirelessly for the BV School District (and volunteer organizations). He is an extremely valuable BV school employee and I am thankful that he works for our district.
I do agree that using a $100,000 house as a reference point wasn’t the best choice. If you did notice they did keep “upping” the house value, I saw refences to $175,000 & $200,000.
While I personally did not support the bond issue yesterday, I at least am thankful that I don’t live in the Harrisburg school district. They have MAJOR problems!
December 5th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
At the Argus Leader, reporters are instructed to use a $150,000 property as an example when calculating possible increase in annual taxes.
December 5th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
IT’S JUST A SAD FACT THAT APPROX. 1800 VOTERS OUT OF A POPULATION OF APPROX. 8600 MADE THE DECISION FOR THE WHOLE CITY.. I WAS NOT IN FAVOR OF THE BOND PASSING, BUT NOTHING I CAN DO OR SAY WHEN CITIZENS DON’T TAKE TIME TO VOTE..JUST PRETTY PATHETIC APPROX. 80% OF THE POPULATION DON’T CARE…
December 5th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Thanks on the information Todd. I was told wrong on the Watertown gym issue, that was not firsthand knowledge. To #8 I was not personally attacking Mr. Marso, just the judgement he made on thinking that we NEED 3 gyms added onto the high school. I have a daughter in sports and never once have I heard her complain about where she has to practice. I believe we are keeping ahead of the pace when it comes to our schoools. I just also believe strongly that we need to scale things back a little or we are going to wake up in the middle a financial crisis. Some of us in this town can only afford so much, not everybody in this community, is wealthy. As far as Watertown having more industry, that is true. Maybe our city government should be working on attracting some businesses to the community to generate tax dollars instead of getting their buddies ambulance service started up…..
December 5th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Using the same variables I figure if you drop the gym that is bothering you, so the bond would be 17 million, it would cost approx $0.84 per thousand. So on a $150000 house it would be $126 instead of $171. Difference of $3.75 per month on your taxes. However by the time another bond was proposed the cost of building would go up so it would actually cost more than $17 million, which would make the difference even smaller. So, good for the citizens that it passed and I cant wait for completion. I think Mr Lundberg deserves a big thank you for a job well done. The school board and building committee included in the thank you.
December 5th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
BVHS needed a new gym in the 80s. The current facility does not meet the needs of our growing community. I congratulate Mr. Marso and the rest of the planning committee for having the foresight to realize that we will eventually need this size of facility, even if we don’t now.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Can someone explain to me why this new school is being built in by pine lake hills? How does this help our community? Bus our kids to SF instead of having them come to Brandon? I would think having the school in Brandon would be better for our economy. I do not get it.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am
The school district already owns the land where they plan to build the new elementary school. That land was donated to the district years ago.
Also, the neighborhoods in that area are in the Brandon Valley School District, and that area is being developed with even more houses.
December 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am
may be money talks “resident”
December 6th, 2007 at 11:46 am
Both my husband and I are graduates of BVHS– I’m not as brave as you Gordy in saying what year tho. We also have two kids in the school district. One of the reasons we decided to settle in Brandon was because of the great school system. I was definitely in favor of the bond issue. The opportunity to give our kids an excellent education is a necessity — and that starts with having the necessary facilities in which to provide that education. Thank you to all the committee members and voters who took the time to vote.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
Resident and always listening:
The Assam family donated land to the school district numerous years ago. The land is located @ six mile road and 10th streetish and I think it was 10 or 20 acres. The Assam’s knew that based on future projections(sf city planning 15 yr plan) the City of Sioux Falls would be growing to the east. Many donors do this to recieve charitable donations (save taxes) and hope for future development around other land that they MIGHT own in the area. This is a very common move in the land development world.
The children attending this new elementary are mainly from the SW part of the BVSD. (Note: our school district lines go from Minnesota line to Iowa line to 57th/Hwy 11 to Cliff Ave) The need to bus kids from Brandon to this location would be very unlikely. (school board decision on boundary lines)
One of my favorite movies growing up was Field of Dreams. Do you remember the famous line? “Build it and they will come.” If you capture the elementary children the likely hood of the students leaving in middle school or high school is slim.
Later we could discuss the importance or not of having that student growth over the next 15 years but that can be for another blog.
Hope this helps a little.
Todd — PS: Hi NPN
December 6th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
thought I’d let you tell the story Todd, thanks
December 6th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
I needed a coffee break.