Talk of Lufkin

By ralph

October 13, 2009 10:40 PM | Link to this

my understanding is that the stadium meets ada already….how bout some investive reporting so we all know what in the world the stadium needs. if you demolish a building how can you remodel it? it wont be there to remodel… maybe we are not getting the whole story what is being remodeled? why not pay the bonds off and reduce the debt and lower our taxes instead of having the apraisal district raising our property values when property values have gone down in the past 2 years.

By ralph

October 13, 2009 10:41 PM | Link to this

my understanding is that the stadium meets ada already….how bout some investive reporting so we all know what in the world the stadium needs. if you demolish a building how can you remodel it? it wont be there to remodel… maybe we are not getting the whole story what is being remodeled? why not build a decent middle school or another middle school then the worse middle school in the state of texas

why not pay the bonds off and reduce the debt and lower our taxes instead of having the apraisal district raising our property values when property values have gone down in the past 2 years.

By ralph

October 13, 2009 10:42 PM | Link to this

my understanding is that the stadium meets ada already….how bout some investive reporting so we all know what in the world the stadium needs. if you demolish a building how can you remodel it? it wont be there to remodel… maybe we are not getting the whole story what is being remodeled? why not build a decent middle school or another middle school then the worse middle school in the state of texas

why not pay the bonds off and reduce the debt and lower our taxes instead of having the apraisal district raising our property values when property values have gone down in the past 2 years.

By Jackie

October 14, 2009 3:26 AM | Link to this

Do we HAVE to spend the extra money, already? Cannot the “leftover” funds carry over into some escrow accounts respective of a specific - not a general fund?

Please…oh please help out with this one, ‘concernedtaxpayer’. You may have an answer…but this is all I could think about right now.

I have had such a bad workday today. Yeah…I hear it now, “who cares…we all have these kinds of days everyday”. I did not get fired…I’m the business owner. We did not have any accidents. Nothing was stolen…it was “just one of those days”…more than 36 hours long at one stretch and all I want to do right now is crash and burn. Excuse me while I do it….

(Hear the crashing and burning in the background?)

By Vagrant

October 14, 2009 7:31 AM | Link to this

What a waste of taxpayers money…dropouts are common and illiterates are graduated from LHS…the priorities of the school district are incredibly bad for the community and the future of the community…John Outlaw is paid more than a person teaching children to read, write, solve math problems, etc….that is a crime in and of itself…soccer fields and renovation…NO…NO…NO…IT IS TIME TO VOTE OUT THE INCOMPETENTS…

By bob

October 14, 2009 9:30 AM | Link to this

yea, spend the money on sports. that will help all the kids get a good education. I guess it will also help lower taxes.

By Jessie Bonner

October 14, 2009 10:47 AM | Link to this

The money should be returned to the taxpayers as a modest tax cut. It should not be used for projects that were not part of the original bond proposal—especially during a time when the economy of Lufkin is in a state of uncertainty.

By concernedtaxpayer

October 14, 2009 12:20 PM | Link to this

This article certainly doesn’t do much to advance my opinion of school districts and what they do to our property taxes. But come February the filings to protest will begin and everyone will be blaming the appraisal district because their property taxes are so high.

A 50 million dollar bond at a time of deep recession and major job loss right here in town (i.e. closing of heavyweight employers, papermill, founder, etc) and no new prospects in sight should never have been passed. To make matters worse now they are putting a 10 million dollar importance on parking lots and a middle school field house? Quite frankly I believe the spirit of the game and promotion of teamwork would still be accomplished even if all they had were tents to change in and a converted pasture to play in. The boys would still play, the cheerleaders would still cheer and the fans would still support. New field houses shouldn’t be billed to the taxpayers, it won’t hurt anyone to go out and fundraise for donations to do just that which would not require a permanent raise in property taxes.

It is relatively unlikely the money will be put towards lowering taxes for the community so I won’t rhetorically repeat that is what should be done.

However, I remembered reading an article about the utility bills for Lufkin. I cannot remember if it was for the entire school district or just the high school, but it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000 a month. Considering the money has already been approved and has no real purposeful allocation would it not be industrious and perhaps even cost effect for taxpayers to invest that in solar panels to at least aid in reducing the utility bills? As with current energy costs continually on the rise it would not only be economically friendly, but economically prudent as to offset tax increases in the future to cover it.

I should also expect with the job shortages here that any construction or renovation done with a community bond project should be mandated to employ out of work locals.

Of course do I hold out much hope that the property owners who will have to repay the bond will be taken into consideration, no hardly not. It has not been past history to do so and without any real threat in positions on the school board there isn’t much hold out for hope that it will in the future.

By Former Student

October 14, 2009 1:39 PM | Link to this

How about Roy Knight and the rest of the school board go forward and actually build an auditorium on the LHS campus. Soccer field is good and it’s not like any of those kids are going to play in MLS or the English Premier League, so why dump money into it?

The quality of this school district has gone down since Mr. Knight has been in charge. He was bad enough running Lufkin High School, but this? This is why my children do not go to school in this district.

By PainfullyObvious

October 14, 2009 5:00 PM | Link to this

Sad that they do not consider the money to belong to the taxpayers. If there are things that must be done…why does it always have to do with athletics?….I guess do it.

How about spending some of the money to regain control of the HS from the thugs and troublemakers who rule the hallways and classrooms?

Knight knows all of this. He doesn’t care. At $175K a year he could not care less what the parents of the good students think.

By Jackie

October 14, 2009 9:07 PM | Link to this

I don’t go to sports games to see the teams play, anyway. I go to see the cheerleaders.

By Randy

October 14, 2009 11:46 PM | Link to this

Roy Knight is all about the kids first. One of the best guys I know and very good for the Lufkin ISD. Don’t speak negative of him until you know him. Yes, you can move your kids to Hudson, but you don’t get a better education but you sure do pay higher property taxes. If your read the article, it states that a complaint was filed to the State of Texas by someone with disabilities. The State told the Lufkin ISD to get ADA compliant and provide adequate access seating for disabled any fan who want to attend any function at Abe Martin stadium. This means adding ADA seating on the home and visitor side of Abe Martin. Not a renovation of the entire stadium, although it needs it. The stadium is far from being ADA compliant. In the case of the soccer field, that booster club has work very hard to raise $100,000 of the $250,000 they need to add dressing rooms, restrooms and a concession stand. Curently the opposing team must dress in their bus, fans must walk over to Abe Martin for restromm use and the concession stand is a trailer. The rest is needed for infastructure to repair roadways, driveways and expand parking lots. The old Middle school field house was built in the 1950’s and is not structurally sound. They want to tear it completely down and remodel an existing building in order to have a place for the teams to dress before practice and games.

Mr. Knight also stated that all remaining funds would be put in a rainy day fund until 2018 when the 1996 bond will be retired, reducing taxes by $.07 per 100. These additional projects would be somwhere areound 3.6M with the remainder of 6.4M held in a fund until 2018.

On the other hand, maybe you need to go to the school board meeting on Thurday to air these same opinions to the school board directly. My guess is most of you will never go to where your voice can truly be heard. They are asking the public for their opinion, helping to retire the old 1996 bond is a good idea if it saves us taxes, but my guess is it would only be about $.01.

Something else you may need to know is not all of your school taxes go to Lufkin ISD, in fact since 2005 the LISD had had to send over $6M of your tax dollars to the State of Texas general fund.

In closing, many of your complaints are about athletic but if you notice, all the 39.5M that has been spent in this bond has been for educational additions and campus improvements, nothing athletic. By the way they ARE building a very nice aditorium on the LHS campus with this money. Botom line, most of the complainers don’t have a clue, assuming way too much. Go to the shool board meeting, that is where you will be heard and hear some facts.

By Former Student

October 15, 2009 6:41 AM | Link to this

I was at LHS when they opened the doors to the new campus. Mr Roy Knight flaunted the school’s “high tech” security.

Two weeks later…near riot in the cafeteria.

Few years later, a girl gets sexually assualted in one of the hallways.

Those two incidents not withstanding, what about all the drugs that come through those doors? When I was a student there, I personally saw deals being made and teachers turn away from it. Roy knows exactly what went on when he was in that really nice, comfortable, leather office chair when he was principal at LHS…now it’s just worse.

Roy Knight is a joke and a sham.

By concernedtaxpayer

October 15, 2009 8:27 AM | Link to this

Why is this being made about Roy Knight? It isn’t his money, it’s the taxpayers. The bond was approved for specific purposes and these purposes were not in it. The cost projections for the intended purposes were obviously inflated more than likely to get a higher bond passed under the mask of educational purposes.

I have no children and could care less what what Mr. Knight does or does not do for this school. This is about record high property taxes, property owners fed up with being gouged and the school using 10 million dollars for projects that were never approved by the people footing the bill. You really think an outdated middle school field house is that large of a problem? What have the students and parents done to rectify that problem? What will their contribution be because I cannot imagine property owners to be completely on board with a permanent tax increase (we all know bonds are never really retired, just new ones take over and the tax never goes down)for projects like that.

It is the taxpayers money, not the school board, not Mr. Knight.

Want to know why they are not at the school board meetings? Well here is a little insight for you, for one some of us do not even have children (though still on the hook if we own property to pay for the cause). Many of us have one sometimes two jobs that provide our basic support in which it isn’t feasible to lose pay to attend such a meeting. What will happen by showing up anyway? They will still vote however they want to, we will have been heard yes but at the end of it will just be slapped with the bill to pay for it all anyway. Instead of the school boards conducting their meetings now, really they should head out to the appraisal district during the protest month and explain to those people lined up why they should not be protesting the bill for all this.

By PainfullyObvious

October 15, 2009 5:59 PM | Link to this

Randy,

Your buddy Roy Knight knows that discipline is a real problem at LHS and LMS. Roy cares about the money….it’s always about the money. Roy “Aw shucks” Knight won’t do anything about it because the State pays money for rotten students as well as the good ones…..and it’s all about money. Mr. Smith does a terrible job at the HS and the faculty knows it…..but it’s all about the money. Putting butts in seats in the stadium is more important to Roy “Aw shucks” night because….it’s all about the money.

The school board knows discipline is a huge problem, but they are a bunch of low brow homers who care about HS football and nothing about god kids from good families who want to walk safe hallways. Any time the LHS team win I consider it a victory for the good kids and the good families.

The school board and the miserable administrators it keeps…..if they were any good someone else would have hired them…..are driving good families and good jobs away from Lufkin.

Does Lufkin really want to be known as the town that produces one druggies football player after another?

Apparently so…..because, aw shucks, it’s all about the money.

By Jackie

October 15, 2009 9:40 PM | Link to this

Aw, shucks…the cheerleaders are great, nevertheless!

By Jackie

October 15, 2009 9:49 PM | Link to this

Listen, folks…if you have so much derogatories to say about LHS, and IF you have children attending that school, or other schools with the similar ilk of students described at LHS (for some part), why in Sam Hill don’t you simply take the kid out of LHS and put him or her in a school of you choice?

So much complaining and nothing to do about it remains in a ‘no-action’ category.

At least in my home, if some things needs alteration, it is thought about, discussed and then acted on. If you do not have a child in a school with LHS’s problems, we can crab about it until we get out of breath and get bleeding fingers from the keyboards…nothing will be ever done about this mess. Not with the current administration and responsible structures Lufkin has.

By current student

October 17, 2009 9:04 AM | Link to this

“By Former Student

Oct 14, 2009 1:39 PM | Link to this

How about Roy Knight and the rest of the school board go forward and actually build an auditorium on the LHS campus.”

Drive by, that’s what the big thing in the back by the band hall is..

By stop & think

October 17, 2009 8:43 PM | Link to this

When we get back to teaching students & tell this over-blown athletics program to go to hell, we might finally be on the right track. Roy is all about the money, & this arrogant head coach is his biggest enabler. Teach school!

Return the unused tax dollars to the people who foot the bill for this circus…the taxpayers! It’s our money - these bozos seem to forget that.

By My two Cents

October 18, 2009 9:14 AM | Link to this

It would be nice to see some of the money being used to fix classrooms, leaky celings can be a distraction.How about new desks, or even paint the inside of the school. LHS is so drab. How about hiring a princiPAL who actually smiles at LHS students and staff.

By Jackie

October 19, 2009 2:21 AM | Link to this

It makes no difference at all 50 years from now, will it?

Some things will never change.

Even the cheerleaders!