{"id":13158,"date":"2014-03-03T03:47:32","date_gmt":"2014-03-03T10:47:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/?p=13158"},"modified":"2014-03-03T10:16:52","modified_gmt":"2014-03-03T17:16:52","slug":"shelton-hs-pool-threatened-wclosure-draws-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/shelton-hs-pool-threatened-wclosure-draws-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Shelton HS Pool Threatened w\/Closure Draws Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Brenda Hirschi @ Port of Shelton Adage Hearings<\/p><\/div>\n

Brenda Hirschi is the current President of the Shelton School Board. Due to State laws regarding such measures, local school boards have a large say in how their school budgets are balanced, what expenditures will be made, what programs will be maintained, how the schools will be staffed, and what extra-curricular activities will be promoted along with whether the curriculum, especially electives, is a good fit for the community. The PTA and board members as well as school staff are not always of one accord. When differences arise, the disputes can become contentious–as they have over the proposed closing of Shelton High’s pool which serves as the only facility of its \u00a0kind within Mason County. It serves as a destination for students and residents alike throughout the year for team sports, recreation, instructions on life saving skills like how to swim\/rescue. In a county with few funded activities designed for youth, some believe it also serves as a bulwark against crime and drugs by giving young people constructive enjoyable programs in which to participate.<\/p>\n

\"Jackie<\/a>

Jackie & Scott MacAlevy w\/family<\/p><\/div>\n

Jackie MacAlevy is a mother of 6, a long time resident, a business woman who partners with her husband’s construction company, and a leader of an area swim team\/club who have utilized the pool over the years to good effect, winning a number of regional\/national medals and acclaim in the process.<\/p>\n

The pool has developed some cracks and serious maintenance problems requiring repairs estimated to range from $250,000 to $1,000,000 in cost. This is money difficult for a lightly populated poor rural community to come by. Brenda Hirschi and her husband, Dean, have proposed closing the pool and using the money saved for its repair to augment other portions of the high school infrastructure, additional classrooms, and the curriculum. Many members of the school board, lead by Ms. Hirschi’s insistence, appear swayed by her arguments. Ms. MacAlevy strongly disagrees and is attempting to rally support for the proposition the pool is a resource the high school, its students, and the community cannot afford to lose–for a variety of reasons.<\/p>\n

Such dilemmas are hardly unheard of. But, the rub appears to be the personalities involved and perceived disrespect at public meetings of the staff, participants, and members of the community who hold views differing from Ms. Hirschi’s. This reporter had occasion to take Ms. Hirschi’s measure during her unsuccessful campaign to become a County Commissioner several years ago. At that time, the cause celeb in Mason County was defeating a company named Adage and its plan for a biomassacre plant (giant incinerator) near the high school, recreational field for youth, and residential areas. The proposed plan was massive in scale (denuding woodlands for a 50 mile radius) and threatened to make Shelton the gateway to industrial blight on the Olympic Peninsula. To her credit, Brenda Hirschi opposed this plan. Ironically, she supported a similar if somewhat smaller plan by Simpson Timber (Green Diamond) to add an incinerator to downtown Shelton’s waterfront, further polluting the air, bay, estuaries, and harbor. When asked about the discrepancy in her position, she glibly explained it was because Simpson had been a resident business for many years while Adage was an interloper. When pressed on this contradiction, she became brittle, defensive, and hostile.<\/p>\n

Brenda Hirschi spent many years as a federal employee in a fiscal capacity doing bookkeeping and accounting for the government. Her strong suit during her campaign for County Commissioner was pointing out how deficient the County’s budget was, how no accountability was in evidence for large expenditures of public funds and transfers to private for profit corporations such as the EDC (Economic Development Council), and the failure to invite bids for many of the proposed County services farmed out to selected firms. This was not only an invitation to cronyism, corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse, but resulted in a number of lawsuits which forced the County to settle for its failure to honor certain contracts. More recently, the State Auditor’s office found the County had violated its fiduciary duty to properly manage its budge according to State law and issued a directive to pay back the departments it had short changed. It also required a specific plan on how the County was going to fund the Belfair Sewer System (a project that had been Senator and County Commissioner Tim Sheldon’s pet monetary black hole) without defaulting on its bond obligations.<\/p>\n

Jackie MacAlevy contacted this publisher to make some of the following observations and criticisms of both Ms. Hirschi as well as the proposal to close Shelton High’s swimming pool:<\/p>\n

“Currently I believe I am on Ms. Hirschi’s short list [of personas non grata] at the moment.\u00a0 Upon our first meeting she either had very poor personal etiquette or she was trying to intimidate me.\u00a0 I proceeded to send an email to all 700 district employees regarding the pool closure issue.\u00a0 I believe I got her attention.\u00a0 In a matter of 6 weeks the pool repairs have gone from approximately $250,000 to ‘well over a million’ \u00a0and she has admitted on the district website (Friday 2-28) they have not received any new bids or the engineering report as yet.”<\/em><\/p>\n

“At the Tuesday February 25th\u00a0school board meeting, several [at one such, 3\/4ths in attendance were said to have walked out] in the audience walked out.\u00a0 I have requested the audio from the meeting, as I received a second hand account of the events.\u00a0 The report I received is as follows:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

“That meeting was the most horrendous display of disrespect, unprofessionalism and belittling that I have ever seen. The \u201cmaintenance projects\u201d is where the discussion went awry which included topics of the re-roofing of OBJH, reconfiguration, the new portable to house the ever growing B-5 program and the pool. Although ordering a new portable was in the budget and researched and ready to order; now Wayne Massie was directed to find other space for part of the Early Learning Program by next week or the week after. He was also directed to get exact numbers on reconfiguration options by next week or the week after. While the pool wasn\u2019t directly talked about, there were several comments regarding ‘Education of our students is our priority’ and talk of not enough money. Since Wayne was in charge of the pool committee, it sounds like he let everyone be on it that requested it because he read off about 15 names. The [deadline for completion] is June 30th, though, and the board is so volatile and reactive; I just have a bad feeling we will come up with all kinds of ideas and solutions, but they may have already made their decision. \u00beths of the audience walked out of the meeting (including many administrators) after 1 \u00bd hours because Brenda \u00a0H. said such disrespectful things to Wayne and stated that all the problems were because the budget was wrong, insulting many members of the audience. Then, Gene accused everyone of acting like children who didn\u2019t win a baseball game. It really was unbelievable.”<\/em><\/p>\n

The Early Learning portable above mentioned was discussed and agreed [it] was needed and [to be] funded at the January 28th study session.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have spoken with several district employees [who] all are upset with the situation.\u00a0 The Journal quotes one who walked out of the school board meeting as saying, “That’s a hostile work environment.”<\/em><\/p>\n

I agree there is no easy solution to solve all the school district’s budget\/funding challenges, but, the environment since January has deteriorated at a rapid rate.\u00a0 The talks about reconfiguration and putting 9 portables at the HS (the cost of the portables is in the ballpark of 1.5-1.8 million dollars)\u00a0 have become a priority in the budget talks. The only locations to put 9 portables is next to OBJH or at\/[near] the HUFF n PUFF [trail].\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

On another front, [on] January 28th, Bob Woods, the maintenance director, was asked if the recent heavy rains and winds had caused any more leaks in the OBJH roof.\u00a0 The answer was ‘no’, and that a repair would fix all the leaking.\u00a0 The estimated cost of the repairs to the roof were approximately $75,000. [This sum doesn’t appear to address the cracks in the pool and the broken mechanical systems associated with it.]<\/em><\/p>\n

With all of the shifting numbers and shifting talk the whole situation is suspect.\u00a0 After hearing Dean Hirschi speak on several occasions, both past and present, it is clear he is adamant that the pool needs to be closed. It seems Ms Hirschi has taken the same position [as her husband].\u00a0 She is using the education of the children as a priority\/[reason], to close the pool.\u00a0 Being in a community with little for youth to do, taking one more thing [e.g. the pool and the multiple programs it serves] away is very shortsighted and irresponsible to the greater good, the health\/[welfare] of the community.<\/em><\/p>\n

It is my feeling the community, as a whole, needs to be paying attention and asking questions.\u00a0 The outlying districts which send their children to the Shelton High School don’t have representation on the school board. These things [closing the pool] will affect their children as well.\u00a0 There may well be problems within the district and how things have been managed over the years, but the current course may cripple the community for the foreseeable future.” -Jackie MacAlevy-<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brenda Hirschi is the current President of the Shelton School Board. Due to State laws regarding such measures, local school boards have a large say in how their school budgets are balanced, what expenditures will be made, what programs will … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13158"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13164,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13158\/revisions\/13164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amicuscuria.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}