Wednesday, November 1, 2000

CITIZEN EDITORIAL

Many decisions face you next Tuesday in the ballot booth, but few are more important for the children of this county than the decision you make on paying for badly needed new schools.

At the bottom of the ballot sheet, there appears this question:

"Shall there be authorized to be issued $65 million in aggregate principal amount of Fayette County School District (Georgia) General Obligation School Bonds?"

We hope your answer will be "YES."

There has been much debate about school funding since voters turned down a special local option sales tax last year that was earmarked for school construction, among other things.

It was the "among other things" that disturbed a lot of voters. In addition, a long-running debate on the merits of SPLOST versus general obligation bonds was played out in our Letters pages.

The Fayette County Board of Education listened to its critics on many issues and followed many of the critics' suggestions. For instance, the board decided to go for bonds rather than a sales tax increase. The board also decided to pare down the previous "laundry list" of school-related projects.

What's left is a bare-minimum list of needs, including a new high school and three new elementary schools.

We strongly support the board's decision to build these schools and to fund construction using bond proceeds.

We urge all Fayette voters to meet the bare minimum educational needs of our children by voting "YES" for school bonds next Tuesday.

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