WOODROW (WOODY) WILCOX

FOR GRIFFITH SCHOOL BOARD

REMEMBER TO VOTE TUESDAY MAY 4

Welcome to the campaign website of Woodrow Wilcox for Griffith School Board.

Please, return to this website and its pages occasionally for updates.

Recently, the Griffith Town Council voted to buy Franklin School from the Griffith Public Schools Board for ONE DOLLAR as reported in the local newspapers on April 8.

I am against this sale.  I would work to get Franklin School back into the Griffith schools system permanently and not close it after the 2010-2011 school year.

You can help.  Sign the petition which will be circulating.  The petition is to both the Griffith Town Council and the Griffith School Board to cancel or reverse the sale of Franklin School to anyone and keep Franklin School in the Griffith schools system.

In 2009, there were several public meetings about the future of Franklin School.  I attended and/or spoke at most of them.  Those of you who attended the meetings may recall some of the items in my comments here.

At the Beiriger School meeting, Ivy Tech Chancellor Guadelupe Valtierra was asked if he was at the meeting because Ivy Tech was interested in acquiring Franklin School.  He said that he was not.  But, then he said that Ivy Tech would not be interested in a building that was about 100 years old.  At another one of the public meetings, school board member Richard Anderson said that the last portions of the original Franklin School were removed in 1975.  That means that today’s Franklin School is mostly a bit over 45 years old.  Did Guadelupe Valtierra know that when he made his comment at the Beiriger School meeting?

Also, at the Beiriger School meeting about Franklin School, one Griffith resident corrected the professor who wrote a study that alleged that Griffith had a declining school enrollment.  When the figures on the professor’s chart were corrected, the citizen pointed out that the corrected figures showed that public school enrollment in Griffith was slightly increasing.  The man who “nailed” this fact destroyed the credibility of the professor, the superintendent, and the board members who alleged that enrollment was declining.

At the meeting at Griffith High School, I was speaking against the closing of Franklin School.  While I was arguing with the school board members, I realized that they had a plan which they were not disclosing to the public.

So, then, I said to the board, “You have a plan and a buyer in mind for Franklin School, but you’re not telling the public what your real intentions are.”  I believe that I hit the nail on the head with that comment.

Franklin School is valuable and historical to the people of Griffith.  But, Franklin School and the land that it sits on would be valuable to a private investor or developer.

I believe that several years ago, a plan was started to remove teachers and students from Franklin School so that a deal could be made for Franklin School and its property that would benefit some undisclosed interested party.

The Superintendent and School Board members made various claims about Franklin School.  None of the excuses rang true with me.  I have worked in construction.  Usually, it is less expensive to maintain and remodel an old building rather than build a new one.

Where is the cost savings if you must spend millions of dollars to add to other schools rather than repair and remodel an older school?  I attended Ready School in 1960.  So, maybe parts of Ready School are just as old, or older, than parts of Franklin School.

Unfortunately, the Town of Griffith can give a private developer a tax abatement for buying and developing the Franklin School property.  A “tax abatement” is a big property tax break which promoters always promise will help a community.  But, Crown Point was shocked recently when Dawn Food Products announced that it would stop its operations in Crown Point (soon after a tax abatement ended).  That will cause 160 employees to lose their jobs.  A few years ago, Anderson, Indiana was shocked when an automobile maker closed its plant after a tax abatement ended.  So, often, both during the tax abatement period and immediately after a tax abatement ends, other property owners in a community must pay higher property taxes because local politicians gave a big tax break to a developer or industry.  Griffith property owners don’t need higher property taxes to support a tax abatement to help a real estate developer or other new property owner make a huge profit.

It is not too late to save Franklin School.  Contact the town hall.  Contact your town council member.  Tell them that you want the sale of Franklin School to the town reversed.  Contact the Superintendent and School Board.  Contact school board members.  Tell them that you want the sale of Franklin School reversed and that you want Franklin School open for students this fall and always.  But, also, show up to the town council and school board meetings over and over and over to demand that the sale of Franklin School be reversed.  Make it difficult for any other business to be conducted until Franklin School is restored to the school system and operating for the benefit of the south and central portions of Griffith and the students who live there.

The phone number for the town hall and town council is 924-7500.

The phone number for the school board is 924-4250.

Be sure to call the day before and the day of the scheduled meetings because, in the past, Griffith’s political leaders have often cancelled or rescheduled meetings whenever they expect citizens to attend whom the politicians don’t want to hear.

And, finally, vote for me in the Griffith School Board election on May 4.  Also, as far as I know, Charles Ted Cook is the only other school board candidate whom I believe is just as pro-Franklin School as I am.  But, check for yourself.  I encourage you to learn the position of each school board candidate on the FIGHT FOR FRANKLIN issue and other issues.

Published by Elect Woodrow Wilcox (and “paid for” by Elect Woodrow Wilcox).