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To Mr. Woodward and the board of trustees:

My bullet points for why the the $55 million levy was defeated:

1. As has been stated by many, too much all at once.

2. No input by the general public. Only teachers, board members and others with school connections decided it. 3. The convoluted financing method dreamed up by an out-of-town attorney.

4. An ongoing enrollment decline that is projected to continue. Why add new classrooms for fewer kids?

5.Costly new athletic fields. You already have fields and can’t you use the fields between Lincoln, the railroad and Pine Street?

6. When the current schools were built, the economic base was higher paying timber and sawmills jobs, some light manufacturing and retail. Now, modestly paying light manufacturing and retail/service jobs; a tourist economy.

7. A new city budget up $7.5 million to nearly $40 million with three new hires, one of which will do the job our glorious new administrator with her $102,000 salary was supposedly hired in part to do. All this and a non-voted 3-percent city tax boost.

8. The Memorial Field 1 percent sales tax with a cost now going from $2.9 million to $4.5 million; claiming it is part of the city’s new budget and not a separate income stream.

If you intend to run something again, make it either in smaller increments and/or go the bond route with no third party involvement to get a consensus.

LAWRENCE FURY

Sandpoint