MASON CITY – The Mason City school board will meet Monday night and talk about proposed projects to build a new gymnasium and swimming pool, potentially costing beleaguered taxpayers millions of dollars.
Superintendent Dave Versteeg will provide an update to the board on the request for proposals for the schematic design planning for the proposed Mason City High School auxiliary gym and swimming pool. The meeting is scheduled for Monday night, March 4, at 5:30 PM at the Mason City Community School District Board of Education Administrative Center Instructional Support Center.
The project has been rumored for years and now seems to be coming more to the forefront. To the knowledge the NIT newsroom, no costs nor real specifics connected this project have been released to the public by the school district. The gym might be located between Mohawk Field and the MCHS gym.
This afternoon, NIT made a public information request to the MCCSD (the second recent request – the other involved possible nepotism and shrouded hiring practices by the district, which we will report on soon), asking for “details on the proposed Mason City High School auxiliary gym and swimming pool … cost, drawings, how it will be paid for, location of gym, reason the gym is ‘needed.'”
NIT will report more detail when available.
Last year, Mason City voters approved 10 years of additional taxes to support the school district. This came before it was revealed that millions of dollars have been mis-spent and/or mis-appropriated by the Mason City School District. One Mason City citizen and taxpayer said today, “Seems like this is the exact type of behavior that takes place when there is no reporting/watchdog of activities in our school district – now the most notorious in the entire state – and we see how that recently turned out. Can the MCCSD be trusted to run itself with no one watching it?”
You see what’s going down is that the money is pouring in that is ear marked for building & maintenance fund. It can’t be used for the general fund (Well unless you cook the books like Micich, Minear, & Jeffrey’s did.) Anyhow, instead of telling, and, I might add, giving the city tax payers a much needed break by putting on a pause for this funding, No, the Mason City Community District (MCCSD) School Board will do the opposite and demand that these are sorely needed when it truly isn’t. While swimming is a great sport, how many millions will it take to do this project? Now compare that cost to how many swimmers who will benefit — maybe 20-25 swimmers? Furthermore, MCHS current gymnasium is already very nice. Why build another and/or larger one? Especially, when our student population is declining. And, we already have a very nice state-of-the-art weight lifting room. Don’t let MCCSD School Board hood wink the public. It’s time we attend these meetings and demand the School Board make best practices financially for Mason City’s tax payers.
“Now compare that cost to how many swimmers who will benefit — maybe 20-25 swimmers?”
36 on the boys team, 25 on the girls team.
Thanks for pointing that out NEMCMAN. That is also a one year total. Over the course of the 50 years the current pool has been utilized, how many students have benefited? Thousands I am sure. When I was in junior high at John Adams, we used the pool for PE in addition to the swim team using it. The short-sightedness of the opponents is astounding
50 million dollars spent on the MCHS/John Adams complex not over 5 years ago, why was this issue not addressed at that time? Return the gym to its original state, replace the pool. That’s plenty to spend on a town and school system that’s sinking like the Titanic.
To answer the question posed by NIT at the end of this story the answer is a resounding NO. Do NOT trust the mc school admin and the board. They clearly believe their job is to squeeze every nickel out of the beaten down confused sheep still wandering around this town and then BLOW the bucks on themselves and fancy new digs to throw a ball around in. A new gym won’t turn Chad Wilson into LeBron Bron. They still gonna go 8-12 on the year. Scuttle this idea NOW.
Scrap swim as a sport. This is Iowa the only water we got is the white filth piled 8 feet high. Problem solved.
Why do you want to scrap swimming? Record or near record number for both the girls and boys team the last few years.
You signed as “Wrestler”, you got your weight room, upgraded practice area, and fancy “mat hangars” in the gym, why are you against the swimmers deserving an upgrade? Most other sports have had and upgrade to some part of their program in the last few years, why not swimmers?
I think the answer is that wrestling numbers are down and if you cut out boys swimming you might get 1 or 2 more athletes in your program.
The original high school plans had a swimming pool on campus, John Adams with 5 lanes was supposed to be temporary. Now after 50+ years of promises of a new pool you are of the opinion to scrap the sport and the pool?
Yep, teenagers groping each other in skin-tight singlets while trying to force the other man onto his back, thereby proving his dominance is much sexier… sorry I meant better.
Are you CM Punk or Rick Flair?
They should bill Charles City for the pool since the loser school board shut down their swimming pool and shipped the team to Mason City.
Bull shit! Get back the money they stole and use that.
I remember back in the day, competing for the Mohawks. Got a weight room, grassy field, cinder track, and the hallways. A brown paper bag with PB sammiches and an apple a cookie and a tiny carton of milk. And our athletes won state titles. Now this Seaton board member is crying that the kids gotta get to the gym and the roads are icy here in Iowa. Well crybaby rich doctor Brent Seaton shoudl buy himself a school bus and drive the coddled brats to practice himself then and quit asking the taxpayers to flip the bill. This why the Mohawks lose so much, too many ninnies baby them.
The only thing you competed in was for lowest gpa in the high school.
WTF do they need a new gym for? The women high schoolers beat a lot of teams from towns much smaller than Mason, heck made it to state! Sure they got bounced quick, but still beat those little town teams. That’s a pretty successful season by MCHS standards. Don’t fix what aint broke!
In an aging town, we build a hockey arena and a new gym/pool. This town’s decision makers truly are lost.
…easy spending other peoples money, ask the mayor