BOND PROPONENTS RESPOND TO OPPOSITION

Proponents of the school bond issue and building fund tax levy to be decided Tuesday by Cape Girardeau voters denounced an "11th-hour campaign" by people hoping to defeat the two propositions.

The opposition, Citizens Against the School Bond Issue, ran a half-page advertisement in Sunday's and today's Southeast Missourian outlining their reasons for opposing the school bond issue.

Sunday afternoon, proponents of the $25 million bond issue held a press conference to refute some contentions in the ad especially, they said, the implication that community involvement in developing the school bond issue was lacking.

"We wanted the community to see how much grassroots support we have," said Janet Shepard, a member of the pro-bonds group Citizens for Better Schools. She initiated Sunday's quickly-called news conference, which drew about 80 supporters to a Show Me Center meeting room.

Also on Sunday, the citizens group, Vision 2000, issued a press release urging voters to approve the bond issue. The release was not a response to the ad, Chairman Harold Tilley said. He said, "We have been disappointed in the recent activities to try to defeat the bond issue."

The bonds and levy would pay for the construction of a middle school and elementary school at the northern corner of Bertling and North Sprigg streets, along with an addition to Jefferson School and renovations of other school buildings in the district.

Among those at the press conference criticizing the ad were Harry Rediger, chairman of the Project Partnership finance committee, which helped develop the bond proposals. He described himself as "tired and disturbed" by the last-minute tactics.

Saying the project has unfolded over the past 15 months and has sought citizen participation all along the way, he questioned why the opponents' "silence ... prevailed until the latest 11th hour."

Joe L. Mirgeaux, a retired businessman, and Fred Withrow, a retired principal, signed the ad. Mirgeaux declined to speak to the Southeast Missourian on Sunday.

Withrow said he was unaware of the Project Partnership deliberations that resulted in the school project "until it was too late." Withrow said, "We were not invited (to participate)."

Withrow said media outlets generally were unresponsive to the bond opponents' attempts to receive coverage of their point of view. "(They) refused to let our feet in edgeways," he said.

Hotel- and restaurant-builder Jim Drury also was among those who attended the meeting last week that initiated the anti-bonds campaign.

So far, the major feature of the campaign has been the ad, which in Ross Perot-type language called for using local talent to find a grassroots solution to the acknowledged problem of deteriorating school facilities.

But, Rediger countered, "We have used all the talent in the community that has come forward."

The ad also contended that "...The greatest potential for growth in the city is west and southwest...." Rediger disagreed.

The district anticipates needing to build a new elementary school in the city's northwest sector sometime in the next decade or so, he said "not in the west or southwest area of the city or anywhere adjacent to the Holiday Inn."

The last was a reference to the area of town where a number of Drury's businesses are situated.

Bekki Cooke, a Cape Girardeau attorney who is a member of the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, suggested that money is motivating some of the opposition to the Bertling-Sprigg streets site.

"I am sorry if Jim Drury is upset that we would think of developing the northern part of Cape Girardeau," she said. "...This is an appropriate place."

Drury could not be reached Sunday by a reporter to comment.

Washington, May Greene and L.J. Schultz schools will be closed if the bond issue passes. J. Fred Waltz, an attorney who was a member of the Project Partnership facilities committee, said Washington School itself is the most compelling piece of evidence that these schools have outlived their usefulness.

Few educators dispute that the school, built in 1914, is unsuited to teaching students in the 1990s.

"The facilities are dictating our curriculum," Waltz said.

Waltz criticized the opponents who placed the ad as "naysayers." He said: "They never develop their own plan; they always criticize your plan."

Bob Fox, a Cape Girardeau dentist who was chairman of the facilities committee, said he was "incensed" by the last-minute response to the school proposal.

He said the bond issue represents "just the beginning" of meeting the schools needs. "There are many things in the so-called new schools like Alma Schrader that need to be renovated," he said.

The ad also criticized the bond proposal as unfair because more than 100 businesses and individuals in the school district receive tax abatements because they are situated in enterprise zones. The school district could reap nearly $5 million in taxes over the 20-year life of the bonds if the zones weren't in effect, it maintains.

But G. Keith Deimund, a former school board member who was in the audience, charged that the enterprise zone "is benefiting some of the very people who are opposing this campaign" for the school bonds.

Rediger said he welcomes the people who oppose the school bond issue having their say, but summed up the tenor of the meeting when he asked, "Where were these individuals over the last year?"