Board OKs referendum on school repairs in Montgomery

Walk into the oldest parts of Montgomery-Lonsdale High School, and the woes of an aging building are clear.

The windows leak. The roof leaks. The school is heated by two ancient, inefficient boilers.

"My kids literally would wear winter coats in the school. Teachers would wear longjohns," said Mary Malecha, who has three children in the school district.

The list of needed repairs has been growing for years. The school has had seven additions since it was built in 1936. A task force of residents recommended major renovations last year, but the upgrades require a tax increase that -- as recently as August -- Superintendent Corey Lunn didn't believe local voters would approve.

Then suddenly, that changed. This week, the Montgomery-Lonsdale school board voted unanimously to hold a referendum on Dec. 1 that will ask residents to sign off on $29.7 million in improvements.

The vote was called quickly because of a new federal stimulus program that awards no- and low-interest bonding authority to districts in need of building work and renovations. Montgomery-Lonsdale has been approved for stimulus aid that would save more than $10.5 million on school upgrades that Lunn said must be made eventually.

"It was not our intent to do this -- have any referendum -- this fall, but with these federal stimulus dollars, it was just an opportunity we could not pass up," he said.

The catch? Local voters must approve the plans in time for bonds to be issued by the end of the year.

The improvements would include major changes at the downtown Montgomery complex that holds the district's 600 middle and high school students. The boilers and much of the roof would be replaced and two of the building's oldest sections would be torn down. Middle school students would stay, but part of the building would become an elementary school, and high school students would move to an enlarged Elementary School West.

Barrels line halls

When facilities manager Bob Guggisberg started working for the district two years ago, the building's roof had 27 leaks, and they weren't minor drips. "There were barrels lining the hallways," he said. "Now we're down to three, but the only way to rectify them is roof replacement."

When it rains, water penetrates the foundation and floods the boiler room. Outside, mortar has disappeared between bricks. "We have corners of the building falling off," he said.

In the oldest section of the school, bathrooms aren't wheelchair-accessible. Classroom doors have glass-paned windows, a design touch that, in an era of school lockdown drills, makes administrators cringe.

During a tour this week, Guggisberg pushed on the wall of an English teacher's classroom. It shook. In high winds, he said, "this wall has been known to travel six to eight inches in both directions."

Down the hall, bare boards reinforced a wall in another chilly classroom.

"Some of the rooms could really use some heat, but if we turned the boilers on right now, we would end up with hot spots in the building," he said.

Temperature control is so bad in the building's gyms that teams from neighboring schools don't want to visit for tournaments, Malecha said. "In the fall, it's disgustingly hot, to the point as if there's no air exchange in there."

The building's heating and air-quality systems are so inefficient that the district's annual energy bill is about $60,000 higher than it should be, Guggisberg estimated.

If the referendum passes, the district would break ground in the spring and finish renovations by fall 2012.

"The school doesn't need to be fancy or elaborate," Guggisberg said. It just needs to be "a safe, clean environment for students."

Positive feedback

Montgomery-Lonsdale applied for the low-interest bonding authority this year along with 25 other Minnesota districts and charter schools, but district leaders didn't learn until August that their project was among the dozen chosen.

The stimulus program favors deferred maintenance over new construction, as well as projects for which planning has already begun -- two factors that school officials believe helped tip the balance in Montgomery-Lonsdale's favor.

The district held two community meetings last week to get an idea of how residents felt about a referendum. School board members said the feedback was mostly positive, but even parents who support the upgrades say they know the recession could make it harder to get a tax increase approved.

"It's asking people for more money [when] they may already be strapped," Malecha said. "However, I don't think there's a way out for our district. It's almost like do-or-die time, as far as I look at it."

Sarah Lemagie • 952-882-9016