This November, voters in the West and Central areas will vote on whether to split Alpine School District into two or three new districts, regardless of what voters in the South area want.

Because I support conservative principles of smaller and more limited government, I generally favor smaller school districts over larger school districts. Therefore, if Alpine School District is split into two or three smaller districts, these two or three smaller school districts can be superior to the current single larger school district, if we have competent leaders.

Some advantages of two or three smaller school districts (over the current massive school district) might be:

• Less Wasteful Spending - Smaller school districts will likely have fewer bureaucratic layers of district administration, leading to streamlined operations and more efficient resource allocation. This can result in quicker responses to issues and more efficient utilization of funds.

• Improved Accountability - With smaller districts and less bureaucracy, it will likely be easier to track and measure the performance of a smaller group of district administrators, leading to increased accountability at the local level. Also, each school board member will be responsible for one-half or one-third the current number of schools, and can be more responsive to the needs of those school communities.

• Localized and Customized Decision Making - Smaller districts allow for more localized decision-making, enabling local school administrators, teachers, and parents to have a more direct influence on policies, customized to the specific needs of their school community.

If a majority of voters choose a district split, as with most any big change, the devil will be in the details. My career negotiating complex business deals makes me the best candidate to negotiate the best deal if a district split happens, to maximize our assets and minimize our debts, and to make sure students, families, teachers, staff, and taxpayers are all better off after the split.

The incumbent (Mark Clement) has stated repeatedly that he doesn't want the school district to split. That is his bias, and he is entitled to his opinion, which is also the bias and opinion of the majority of the school board and the administrators who work at the district offices. But given their explicit bias against a district split, voters should be very suspicious of the obviously false data that Mark and others at the school district are pushing in an attempt to scare everyone into opposing any district split. This fearmongering seems to be a desperate attempt by Mark and others to hold on to power and, in some cases, hold on to over-paid bureaucratic positions that will be eliminated in a district split. 

It is a documented fact that the MGT Feasibility Study that the school board wasted $200k of our tax dollars on was rigged from start to finish (see the article I researched and wrote on this topic), and the data coming out of the district ever since has also been documented to be just as biased and deceptive.

The truth is that the pay, benefits, and job satisfaction of our great teachers and staff can all get better in smaller districts, not worse, and the students in the smaller districts can have access to more resources and opportunities to learn and grow, not less, if Alpine School District splits into two or three smaller districts, as long as the split is handled by competent leaders who prioritize great teaching over wasteful spending, such as by avoiding crystal-palace school buildings, and avoiding unnecessary and harmful programs and layers of bureaucracy, such as the current DEI program.

And instead of taxes going up on the south end of the current school district, which is a false assumption that Mark and others at the school district are pushing, the truth is that property taxes can at worst stay the same, and could very well go down, if we have competent leaders. Given that the property taxes raised will remain constant while the student population continues to go down (a trend that has been steady for several years in the south end of the current school district), it's simple common sense that having the same tax revenue with fewer and fewer students means we can lower taxes and still spend the same amount per student. Or we can keep taxes the same and continually increase how much we spend per student. Either way, taxes don't need to go up - they can instead either stay the same or go down.