I am a sophomore at Durango High School. For a recent project, we were assigned to research a current issue. My dad suggested looking into the 9-R School District bond, since it was on the ballot this fall. After doing some research, I found there to be some suspicious circumstances. Most people thought the bond was for $90 million. But because of how it was written, the district will end up with long-term debt of approximately $110 million through something called “premium bonds.”
I think it is probably good for the district to get more money, but why didn’t they just let people vote on the full amount? Also, I don’t understand why they used a Canadian bank. Isn’t there a bank in America that could do this? And why didn’t they get multiple bids for the bond like you do for insurance? None of this makes sense.
The same legal firm that wrote this ballot initiative also wrote the one for the sales tax increase in 2019 for the city of Durango. That one was supposed to be strictly for street repairs. But now the city has been collecting this tax for a year and a half, they have collected $6.5 million, but only spent $3.5 million on street projects. The rest was put in the general fund and spent on whatever.
These kinds of actions make the next generation question the trust we are supposed to have in things like our school district and the City Council.
Naomi RoweDurango
