By Samuel Strait – Reporter at Large – April 4, 2022 Clearly former District Superintendent Jan Moorehouse has not kept up with what is happening with the District's $25 million, 2008 Bond Measure. Promises made to the public prior to its passage and subsequent history that were not kept, seems to have escaped her notice. She clearly needs to be reminded that the public was promised a gymnasium in Smith River, a boiler replacement at the high school, the district's modular classrooms retired, and new classrooms to be built to accommodate a district projected significant increase in enrollment. Those of us at the time were not swayed by the argument that the district's classrooms would be bulging at the seams and new classrooms were critical to the district's ability to provide adequate space to teach. It was also promised that the portable classrooms were falling apart and needed to be replaced with new construction. Other than the Gym at Smith River, a questionable priority, and the boiler at the High School, none of the other stated imperatives of new construction materialized. Instead, the general fund for the school district was utilized to the max for increased salaries and benefits to the detriment of maintenance for several decades. Since the Bond was passed and the projected increase in new enrollment failed to materialize, the district has used the bond funding for "renovations" at various school sites. Not what most in the public were expecting to happen. Those that swallowed the District's propaganda that the funds, to use Ms. Moorehouse's words, would be considered "an enormous public trust to shepherd these funds into promised projects". The district further conducted a slight of hand by promising to form a "Citizen's Oversight Committee" which was done to avoid having to reach the 55% margin for passage of a new tax rather than the 50% plus one hurdle, something the 2008 vote failed to achieve at 54%. Forming a COC has been discovered to be a complete waste of resources in recent revaluations, not worth the time or energy spent. It protects the public in absolutely no conceivable fashion, and is merely a rubber stamp for the school board. The COC has no power to protect the public, they are in no way independent, and the reports generally, if produced, simply regurgitate what the district peddles. Besides having no independence, no training offered, if that really mattered, and no independent legal advisor to this day, the district's administration controls what happens in meetings as it is the only source of information offered to the COC to consider. Aside from the fact that the money was NOT spent as promised, Ms. Moorehouse's attempt to paper over the malfeasance of the district's lack of deferred maintenance for decades, including the years that she was Superintendent, is somewhat foolish on her part and clearly misinformation. The COC, may have met when she was in place, and she may have attended those meetings as she claims, yet there is a distinct lack of records to support her claim. Beyond that, the COC was not responsible for the choices made for expenditure of the Bond funding, the school board was. The COC had absolutely no oversight capabilities to check the board's approval of projects that were entertained, let alone those that were completed. The COCs took the word of the district, in the loosely worded intended expenditures, that what the district spent the money on was what was intended. Far from it. By virtue of the fact that enrollment did not increase exponentially, nor was the district in any danger of insufficient classroom space, as the district had projected, the priorities changed and "new construction" elements of the "promised projects" were substituted for renovation, spelled "deferred maintenance projects", that may or may not have been urgent. Landscaping, fencing, new heating/cooling systems for the entire district, carpeting, painting, window replacement, new fire suppression systems, and new technology was hardly the "stuff" of NEW CLASSROOM CONSTRUCTION. The vaunted COC of Ms. Moorehouse's imagination was a toothless tiger and not to be trusted. Who would have ever expected that to occur? It is the school district after all. We were promised… likely with a "pinky" swear that the money was a sacred trust, and look what happened, Ms. Moorehouse. COC's really only have the power to report what the district told them to report. So much for "OVERSIGHT!", Ms. Moorehouse…. Clearly this was something well known by the district when the "promises" were made. As time has passed, those that distrusted the Del Norte School District to accomplish what was promised, have proven to be correct. The complaint is not that the COC may or may not have been a functional body, it wasn't, but that the school district has not kept its promises to the public as to how the money was to be spent, or whether or not it was even justified in the first place. No one is questioning the fact that you, Ms. Moorehouse, have paid your share of the property tax assessment, we all have. Some of us do not take kindly to being lied too….. a growing trait from public education even here locally..