SEELEY LAKE - I recall the U.S. Forest Service running fire camp operations from the Seeley Lake Elementary three times for local forest fires. The Forest Service pays a fee to rent the facility while the Seeley Lake Elementary School is not in operation. The school gets a little financial shot in the arm and the local school district taxpayer should see those funds go into the facility.
Mr. Stout said in a past Pathfinder story that the school has been putting off projects to the facility for 15 years and the parking lot needs to be repaved. The School Board signed on to a recent change in the law that allows them to increase the amount of mills the school can collect from the taxpayers in the district.
I submit that the fee that the School will collect for the Forest Service use of the taxpayer-funded school facility, should be collected and only be used to make improvements to the facility to keep it up-to-date. I also submit that the use of this money should be up to the School Board, approved only by a majority resolution. They are the people we elected to make sure our taxpayer money is spent wisely and they are the people we can hold responsible.
In the past the SLE Board allowed Mr. Stout to spend those moneys as he wanted, instead of taking care of the facility repair items that have needed to be fixed for the last 15 years (his words), he opted to try to compete with local businesses in a store funded by taxpayer money, in a financial time when the tax revenue in this state is down.
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