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PJ Houm's avatar

I look for our community to be efficient with spending its tax dollars in providing the largest benefit to the most people as possible.

That said, count me as a person that is annoyed that citizens cannot use some of the school facilities. But not because those facilities were funded by school taxes - It’s more so because a number were subsidized by city taxes. I’m 100% sure North‘s fields/track were and I know there was at least one other. I expect school taxes should be for education first and for some extracurricular activities that are limited to school attendees. However, when city funds are contributed, I expect a broader set of the population to benefit. (And not just a handful of youth sports participants or for-profit track trainers…)

I travel extensively and more often than not I can find an open school track to run at - and it shouldn’t be a problem for our town to do the same. And I don’t think it has to be a “tyranny of or” situation. We can have trails AND have access to school tracks - it’s feasible with reasonable accommodation and different people would use them for different purposes and that’s OK.

(I think your other analogies were meant to be a bit silly… but for completeness, I don’t want access to the cafe - as there are lots of other options for food. There’s broad access to medical care. And police and fire assets exist to provide benefits for everyone and I have a car - so I don’t need individual access to their cars or equipment. As you note, the trails are good places to run… but a rubber track surface is a ton better on the knees, flatter/easier for less able/elderly runners and more precise distance measurement is nice to have at times as well.)

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Frank  Gasparro's avatar

Informative breakdown of bond election - enjoyed "soapbox" on tax payers use of track 😂

Also the candidates stand on the bond election was helpful👍

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