Oct. 28--This year's Marlington school board race might be among the district's most important election in recent years.
The top two vote-getters of the Nov. 5 general election will help decide how the district should spend the estimated $14.5 million the district expects to receive over the next five years from the NEXUS Gas Transmission, a 256-mile interstate natural gas transmission line that passes through Marlington. The district, which has a roughly $23 million general operating budget, expects to start receiving the money in April.
Incumbents Thomas D. Hippely Jr. and Mark E. Ryan are facing challengers Josh Hagan, a service technician and office manager for Hagan Heating Plumbing, and Danielle J. Stevens, a loan processor at Lake Community Credit Union. The election winners, whose four-year terms begin Jan. 1, will join board members Carolyn Gabric, Karen Humphries and Scott Mason.
While the four candidates appear independently on the ballot, they have joined into pairs – Hippely and Ryan (Marlingtonforward.org) versus Hagan and Stevens (Haganstevensformarlington.info) – with each pair representing an opposite view on how to spend the NEXUS money.
Hippely and Ryan want to spend the money to build a new consolidated elementary school that would be located on land adjacent to the middle school on Moulin Avenue NE. The money would be combined with funds from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. The board already has notified the state of its interest in the facilities program.
Hagan and Stevens believe the money should be spent repairing Washington and Lexington elementary schools and making other needed building upgrades. They also are interested in reopening Marlboro Elementary, which was closed at the end of last school year, but said they first must evaluate the building's condition before promising to do so.
Against consolidation
Hagan and Stevens, both of Marlboro Township, are counting on being elected together so they can join current school board member Carolyn Gabric, an outspoken critic of consolidation, and form a new majority on the five-member board.
With a majority of the board, they hope to stop the board's pursuit of consolidating the elementary schools. They believe residents have demonstrated they prefer to keep the existing elementary schools by defeating previous property tax requests that would have funded the consolidation.
"The voters have spoken time and time again," said Stevens, a 2005 Marlington High School graduate. "In any other election, your vote means something."
Stevens and Hagan say they oppose consolidation because they believe that moving students to a single elementary school will result in longer bus rides for many students, that residents will feel less invested in their school because it no longer sits in their neighborhood and that parents will lose that comfort of knowing their child in nearby in case of an emergency.
They are also concerned about safety with having all the buildings located in such close proximity.
"If there's an emergency at any one of those buildings, it would make it difficult as far as traffic and emergency response," said Hagan, a 2002 Marlington High School graduate and former EMT and firefighter for the Marlboro Fire Department.
Hagan and Stevens also believe maintaining the district's current buildings will be more affordable over the long term than consolidation. They question the claims that consolidating will be a financial benefit.
Hagan, the father of a 2018 Marlington High School graduate and two current Marlington students, noted the district remodeled the middle school for millions of dollars less than what the state facilities commission estimated was needed in its assessment of the buildings. He said that indicates to him the amount of repairs needed to the elementary schools also could be inflated.
"That sheds some doubt on using those numbers to renovate versus building new," Hagan said.
Hagan and Stevens say they would rather invest the NEXUS pipeline money into the maintenance of the district's current buildings that has been put off because the board has been focused on consolidation. They said the renovations can take place over the summer and when the students aren't in school to avoid classroom disruptions.
For consolidation
Hippely and Ryan say they favor closing the current two elementary buildings and building a new consolidated elementary because they believe it will lead to a better education for students as teachers will have access to the latest technology in the new building and grade-level teachers will be able to better collaborate. They also believe the district will save money over the long term through reduced staff and utilities.
Before Marlboro Elementary closed, the district estimated that consolidating from three elementary buildings to one would save between $600,000 and $750,000 a year. The closing of the Marlboro is expected to save $400,000 a year, Ryan said.
"Those savings can be poured into other programs and repairs to other buildings we are using," said Ryan, who is seeking his fourth term and is the father of five Marlington graduates and three current Marlington students.
Hippely, a Washington Township resident who is seeking his second four-year term, said the consolidated building also will save students from trying to learn while the building is undergoing renovations. It also will include better safety enhancements and give the district a central campus, allowing high school students to more easily tutor younger students.
"The benefits clearly outweigh the negatives of it," said Hippely, who has two children in the district. "There's really not any reason you would not want to move forward other than emotion – that it's good enough for me, it should be enough for my kids. No, you should always want better for your kids."
Both Hippely and Ryan say the community has told the board, through surveys, they want a consolidated elementary. They believe the previous defeats of the tax levies to build a consolidated school were meant to be a message to the board that residents do not want to pay higher taxes.
Hippely said the board sought the levy increases because the money from NEXUS wasn't a guarantee at the time.
"You don't count money until you have it in the bank," said Hippely, a commercial sales manager at AutoZone.
Ryan, a Marlboro resident and operator of Western Reserve Coach Sales, said the board has consistently worked to improve the district's buildings, including major renovations at the middle school and air conditioning at the high school, and can continue to do so using the roughly $400,000 that is generated every year by the district's permanent improvement levy.
Reach Kelli at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.
On Twitter: @kweirREP
