Three to Chair School Bond Subcommittee; Members Still Sought

Tables at the Thursday night were arranged to form a square for the 18 people who were present for the first meeting of the school bond subcommittee, which was formed out of the Ferndale Board of Education's Operations Committee the week prior.

The subcommittee will determine if the district should pursue a school improvement bond and, if so, it will then determine what those projects should be.

Superintendent Gary Meier informed the operations committee June 9 that to get the most out of the school bond, it would have to go up in February. If passed, the bond could captures as much as $24 million. The bond would extend a current school bond to, potentially, 2048.

The goal of Thursday's meeting was to flesh out that would actually be part of the subcommittee and then to determine subcommittee chairs.

The subcommittee decided that it would have tri-chairs. Board of Trustees Vice President Jim O'Donnell volunteers along with former school board member Mary Schusterbauer. Schusterbauer served as a chair for former school bond committees. The third chair will be appointed at the June 23  meeting (6:30 p.m. at Harding Administration Center).

The entire Operations Committee, plus a few from the audience of last week's meeting, volunteered to be part of the subcommittee. This week, initial members discussed parameters of fleshing out the rest of the subcommittee.

"We need diverse representation of the school district and it's communities," said Ferndale Public Schools Director of Operations Gary Sophiea.

Board of Education member Keith Warnick, who is part of the subcommittee but not its chair, asked those around the table to say where they lived and if they had any children in the district.

Of the 18 members, most had children in the district and most were in northwest Ferndale. In addition to parents and residents, there were representatives from the administration union, the Ferndale Education Association, AFSME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), and board members Warnick and Nancy Kerr-Mueller.

Yet, despite those at the table, the subcommittee was heavily represented in some areas and not enough in others.

"We have a lot of representation for Roosevelt and JFK," Sophiea said. "But the east side of Woodward is not well represented here. The University High School neighborhood needs someone and the Taft area, south of Nine and west of Woodward, needs more representation."

It was determined that the subcommittee must pursue representation from each facility and parents or community members from each of the four cities the district represents, which include all of Pleasant Ridge and Royal Oak Township and portions of Ferndale and Oak Park.

"We need members from Royal Oak Township, Oak Part, Taft (area) and all the way around to the east side of Woodward," Sophiea said.

It was also requested that the subcommittee reach out to future parents, seniors and organizations in this city, such as the Ferndale Downtown Development Authority.

Subcommittee members will be reaching out over the next week to prospective candidates.

The mission of the bond committee

Schusterbauer said that the subcommittee needs to make sure the mission is clear. "We need to be able to explain (the purpose of the subcommittee) succinctly," she said.

Once selected as a tri-chair, Schusterbauer laid out what the subcommittee's plan of action should be.

"We need to determine whether we go for the bone, what that amount will be and what will be in that bond," Schusterbauer said.

Once all of these points are finalized, and if the subcommittee decides to pursue the bond, a campaign will form, separate from the subcommittee, that will market the bond to the community.

The list

District consultant TMP Architecture and George W. Auch, the district's construction company, . Bill Weinrauch, senior project manager of TMP, said the list was compiled based on a walk through with Sophiea and operations staff. "This list represents the needs of the district and what we could get on the bond," Weinrauch said.

The list includes a lot of mechanical upgrades, removal of asbestos from the high school and middle school ceilings, and various other infrastructure upgrades and/or replacements."(The list) is heavy on mechanics but those are the district's biggest needs," Weinrauch said.

The list, however, is only a starting point, Weinrauch said, for the subcommittee to determine what the bond would go toward.

Sophiea said that the items on the list need to happen regardless of where the bond issue goes. He said that if the bond doesn't pass, the district would have to address the items in someway over the next years. "What's on this list we will have to do anyway," Sophiea said. "If the community says no to the bond, we'll still have to look at this list next year and chip away at it."

Roosevelt Principal Dina Rocheleau, who also was at the meeting representing the administration union, said on top of all the decisions the subcommittee will have to make over the next two months, transparency is key.

"We have to be open and honest," she said.

The meetings are open to the public and are expected to take place every Thursday until July 28. Whatever the subcommittee decides on, it will need to be finalized by the first week of August and in front of the Board of Education by Aug. 15.

To view a list of the current members of the subcommittee click .

Follow Ferndale Patch as the school bond progresses.

Correction: In a previous article it was stated the subcommittee would campaign for the bond. The subcommittee, however, will not campaign for the bond. A bond campaign will be separate from the bond subcommittee.