Like most families, we moved to Mercer Island for the quality public schools. As a fiscal conservative, however, I was curious, but wary of the school bond proposal. To find out more about the school bond, I recently attended a meeting of Committee for Mercer Island Public Schools and have conducted additional research into the specifics of the bond proposal.

Put simply, I’m impressed with the leadership behind this bond. The amount of care, preparation, and research that has gone into this bond proposal is immense. As I recently learned, Mercer Island has a serious problem, as our schools are antiquated, and the status quo simply is not a viable option to allow the Island to retain quality public education. I learned that before proposing the April school bond, the MI School Board enlisted the advice from several independent experts, considered almost every possible alternative to new schools (such as renovating the schools and/or obtaining additional portable classrooms), and debated when to try to rebuild our schools. After years of analysis, all the evidence came to the same conclusion: that we need to rebuild our schools, and that we need to do so now. And, of particular importance to me, this bond ensures that the rebuilding process is cost effective and does not waste our money.

The bond proposal is a very well-prepared, thoroughly-considered, cost-effective approach to a serious problem on our Island, and I will be voting for it this April.

Daniel Kalish