Resident says to vote no on school board’s plans

We definitely need a new middle school in Millstone Township, but we don’t need a School Board, which has breached their fiduciary responsibility to the community and has provided misleading tax information to residents.

The school board has only indicated the tax impact of the bond funding to residents (the infamous $560 yearly increase to build the school). They didn’t inform the residents about the yearly operating costs to run a school, maintenance of the grounds, buying new buses, insuring the property, paying for utilities, providing fringe benefits to employees, and of course the cost of purchasing the land.

Additionally, the school board would like to put a transportation facility in a residential location. Is this really the right thing to do? Colts Neck has located their bus facility on Route 34. With so much land for sale along Route 33, the board should rethink the location of the bus facility, which clearly does not belong in a residential neighborhood.

After attending several board meetings, I was very disappointed to learn that the board did not conduct a financial build-vs.-outsource analysis for the transportation facility. The board did, however, at the last minute, draw up preliminary plans to expand upon the current bus transportation facility at the middle school, which they claim will cost just as much as building all new facilities on Baird Road. The board voted against this option, however.

I think the residents of Millstone should vote down the referendum, and send a message to the Board of Education that its members need to do more prudent financial analyses, as well as find a more suitable and central location for not only the transportation center but also the middle school. It is not "too late" for the Planning Board to go back to the drawing board; the property won’t even be acquired by the time residents vote. Furthermore, if the school board wants to be a "good neighbor," it will find a way to put the transportation facility in a commercial zone, and not next to residential homes.

I urge all residents to get out and vote on Sept. 30 against the school board’s first attempt at this referendum.

Robert Babula

Millstone