School board makes good on promise

Ramona Unified School District trustees made good on a promise they made to the public this summer when they said they would hold a second community workshop after results of a consultant’s analysis of district property were completed.

At the August workshop, the district thought the consultant’s report would be finished in early fall. It wasn’t. Trustees received it last month and it’s been on the district’s website, www.ramonausd.net — all 187 pages — for the public to read.

After the consultant presented his report, school board president Bob Stoody asked about the second community workshop. Some at the meeting were taken aback when board member Dawn Perfect said she didn’t think trustees needed to set a workshop yet. We thank trustee Rodger Dohm for saying he’s ready for a workshop, and we appreciate Stoody’s statements that the workshop be in January, after the holidays, not in March, April or later.

It was Stoody who, after the district’s school bond bid failed in November 2012, recommended a community workshop to discuss long-term fiscal planning and called for everyone to “think outside the box.” The other trustees agreed. The August workshop showed Ramonans have different ideas for approaching the financial mess the district finds itself in as a result of decisions made a decade or more ago — as well as the aftershock of the state’s and nation’s economic meltdown.

The district is considering another bond bid. If it wants the public to take the district seriously, it needs to take the public seriously. That includes giving the public every opportunity to share ideas in hopes of seeing if there isn’t more than one way to put the district on firmer fiscal ground.