On Sept. 14, the voters of Auburn will be asked if they want to build a new elementary school.

The new elementary school will replace a small, antiquated neighborhood elementary school in the Lake Street neighborhood. The replacement of Lake Street School is long overdue, and is the next essential step of an approved comprehensive plan to upgrade Auburn’s aging school buildings and facilities.

Lake Street School is a small K-3 school that is more than 75 years old. The building is too small to accommodate a K-6 school and does not have space for many of the programs and services that are necessary. There is no gymnasium, no cafeteria and an inadequate library located in a trailer. The school is not handicapped accessible, and there is no space for art, music and other essential programs and services.

The new elementary school will be located on a 10-acre site on Park Avenue within walking distance for most of the students in the Lake Street neighborhood. The school is designed for approximately 325 students with a gymnasium, library and cafeteria, space for art and music instruction, and classrooms for a full kindergarten to 6th-grade school with the necessary space for supportive services and programs. The school will also benefit other neighborhood elementary schools by helping to reduce overcrowding in those schools as well.

The new elementary school also will benefit the community in many ways other than just educationally.

An elementary school is an important public institution that provides stability, strength and a common bond in residential neighborhoods. This school will maintain the strong residential character of an existing urban neighborhood and will not contribute to urban sprawl in the rural areas of Auburn. Building the larger, standard-size gymnasium will also provide much-needed recreational space for already overbooked and scarce indoor recreational space. Additionally, it has been shown that improving school facilities and maintaining a good school system helps to attract new businesses and jobs to a community.

The new school, with the help of state funding, is a school we as taxpayers can afford and is a wise use of state and local funds. The state, based on existing funding formulas, will pay for 84 percent of the costs of the school, approximately $8.1 million. The remaining local share, including building a standard-size gymnasium and installing air conditioning, will not increase local property taxes. Funds the school department is already using to pay for previous school construction debt will be retired just as the new school is being built. Those funds can then be used to pay for the local share of the new school, without having to request new tax dollars to pay for the debt service.

Recently, some have questioned the costs of the new school. The approach of all of those involved in the planning and design of the new school is, and has always been, to build a school that meets the basic needs of a modern elementary school as inexpensively as possible. The design that has been proposed for the school is straight forward and durable. No fancy, elaborate or costly features have been added to the school. As we all know, the costs of building materials has skyrocketed within the last year. If there are those who have ideas on how costs savings could be realized on this project, we invite them to step forward and to share those ideas with us. We all share the same goal of using taxpayer’s money as wisely as possible.

There is still plenty of time for those ideas to be heard because on Sept. 14, the voters are only being asked to approve the construction of the new school for a “not to exceed amount.” There will be adequate opportunity after the referendum vote and before the school goes out to bid, for costs saving ideas to be considered and incorporated into the school.

The opportunity to construct a much-needed new school with state assistance only comes once every 12 to 15 years. We can not wait, our children can not wait, and the continued economic growth of our community can not wait. The voters of Auburn will be asked on Sept. 14 to decide the future of their community, to move forward and invest in their future and the future of their children or to pass up an opportunity to improve their lives and the lives of generations of children to come.

The time is now, and the choice is clear. The voters of Auburn must exercise their responsibility to vote and to support the construction of the new school as well as building a larger, standard-size gymnasium and installing air conditioning for the classrooms.

John Cleveland is the treasurer for Citizens for Good Schools. He is the former mayor of Auburn and a former state senator.

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