Ten reasons I'm voting NO on the Bethel school bond: 1. Voters rejected the bond just two months ago. 2. Major contributors to the new bond pitch, according to Public Disclosure Commission records, are engineering and architectural firms who stand to profit. 3. Bethel's $262 million budget is $49 million larger than Puyallup's, yet it funds fewer schools, fewer students, and yields a lower graduation rate. 4. Bethel's campaign resembles a high-dollar hard sell with TV ads, tours, billboards and improper 20-foot banners draped on buses. 5. Bethel paid $70,000 for a "rural land inventoryGÇ¥ by a former county planner who resigned after sexually explicit e-mails were found on his county computer. 6. Bethel's superintendent received a 2009 "SchrammieGÇ¥ award from a television news icon for "flushing away educationGÇ¥ by hoarding millions for AstroTurf and new buildings while laying off hundreds of teachers. 7. Bethel uses its condemnation powers arbitrarily, threatening to take land from a rural church instead of in urban Frederickson, where a high school is actually needed. 8. Bethel's pitch to build sprawling campuses on farmland was rejected by the Legislature and the Growth Management Hearings Board. 9. Bethel's plans for luxurious facilities such as an Olympic-sized pool should be focused instead on improving the basic education of its students. 10. Bethel's dropout rate is among the worst 25 percent in Washington, but its extravagant expansion would benefit builders, not students. Join me in a NO vote to correct Bethel's misplaced priorities and waste of money. George Wearn Graham
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