Civic duty calls for educating yourself with facts

By Andy Prinsen

Fri, Nov 30th, 2012
Posted in All Commentary

Comments

By Andy Prinsen

In a recent letter written by a Mr. Brett Kues, he admits over and over again that he is “confused,” and in reading your letter to the editor Mr. Kues, I will second that idea.

First off, I would like to thank Mr. Kues for bringing to light some of the misconceptions floating around and allowing those that know the facts to respond. Much like many other people, I was raised with a strong sense of community and civic duty, one that calls on me to find out all of the FACTS before making an important decision. Many of the claims or insinuations you made in your letter seem as though you wandered down the street and grasped onto any old rumor and falsehood available. I realize that you have been in town a short time and I welcome you to our community, but the educational facility issue in the RP school district was a pre-flood problem.

Your letter also mentions that you are confused by the wording of the ballot and you insinuate that this money will be used to balance the budget. The FACT is that bonded money for building cannot be used in the general fund to balance budgets; it has to be used for building an educational structure. You also bring up the decade old rumor that there “isn’t enough land” to build a building due to the state requirements of having at least 35-40 acres on such a site as to build a school building. This myth has been debunked years ago as the state has allowed us to use the park and activity field area adjacent to the school property as green space.

Unfortunately you do not stop there, you take these two rumors/falsehoods and come up with two paragraphs of “smoke and mirrors” which include a highly fictional, and laughable Plan A and Plan B. I will give you credit, when talking about the average tax increase for a home in the school district you do use the factual number of $269. But then you add “Personally, I think the estimate is low, and the actual increase will be much higher.” Once again, you feel the need to spread your knowledge of the Minnesota Property Tax System, or you are grasping at straws that aren’t there.

You still didn’t stop there. Next, you became an expert in the area of school construction where you erroneously guestimated that the entire project would cost $45 million dollars down the road, plus you came up with a seriously flawed projection of the tax impact. Is it your strategy to throw out really large but erroneous numbers to try to scare people? Spreading false information is certainly not an honorable act in any society. I could go on and debunk all of the rumor, myth and errors in your “commentary,” but I will get back to my main point.

Every citizen of the RP school district must work to find the FACTS. Cut through the “smoke and mirrors” used in commentaries like Mr. Brett Kues’ and educate yourself so that you have the FACTS to make an educated decision. I am a property owner, I have kids in the school district , and I will be voting YES on this issue because I personally feel that it is my community and civic duty to support this project, but I will respect any and all citizens that work to base their decision on the FACTS.

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