Letter- Questions district facts

Dear Editor

Depending on what they want, the school board seems to relish in manipulating facts, embellishing figures and bombarding the media with mute results from paid consultants. Like the many advisory reports from Hoffman always backing the superintendent’s position. Why not, between Eggebraaten’s tenor at Kimberly and Hudson School Districts she is directly responsible (including the new high school) for Hoffman being awarded over $150 million in contracts. I’ll bet Mary got the FTD big bouquet for Valentine’s Day.

They seem to come as a package. “Superintendent, have builder will travel.” They work well as a team -- like when Hoffman first stated that a site of at least 100 acres would be needed for a new secondary school, thus eliminating the UU property at the time because it would only produce 80 viable acres. The board chirped in with “School officials announced recently that the district is searching for a site of at least 100 acres,” a quote published in a Star-Observer article in March 2011. Then when it came to light that the track property would only produce 70 viable acres for construction the requirements needed for the new school mysteriously dropped to 65 acres. Even more bizarre Hoffman built Kimberly High on a 40-acre parcel, they are amazing.

Like using “School Planning and Management Magazine” for their square foot costs so they could say they built River Crest Elementary for $166 a square foot, $57 a square foot under the regional average (making the average cost of an elementary school in 2008 $223 a square foot according to Hoffman). When in reality the cost of building an elementary school in 2008 in Wisconsin according to, R.S Reed Construction Data, was $120 a square foot. Bottom line, River Crest elementary was built for $46 a square foot over the average, costing the district an extra $4 million.

Oh well, that only figures to an $18 tax hike per home. Every article I read Eggebraaten and Hoffman were spewing about coming in under the average costs on the River Crest project. Didn’t anyone who printed that dung check the facts? Obviously Meg Heaton didn’t. She was too busy running the propaganda blitzkrieg for Heir Eggebraaten.

Finally, do you really believe that this school board is going to use 90,000 square feet of a 20-year-old dog track structure in their new school, I think not. Be careful, once we are committed there’s no turning back!

John Windolff, Hudson

Tags: opinion, letters, education