Many of close to 60 Athabasca and area residents, who came out last Wednesday to hear about the new secondary school, went away unimpressed.
“The process chosen by Aspen View School Division is flawed,” said an attendee. “What you've done is disservice anybody who's a citizen that votes, and you've done that by preventing us from expressing our views.”
“Your partnership has meant that any group not involved in your partnership could not speak up and address the public. You muzzled them. I don't like it, and I'm hear to say I don't like it.”
Since the initial designs for the new school were completed a few weeks ago, Aspen View Public Schools has presented them at various public forums, including one held in the Edwin Parr Composite (EPC) School library last week.
According to superintendent Mark Francis, there has been a generally positive reaction to the school at most of the meetings.
Such wasn’t the case on Wednesday.
The entire consultation process was one of the first things that the attendees took issues with. Many of them believed not enough consultation was done.
“This is a done deal because our elected officials made the decision without community consultation,” said an attendee to applause from the audience. “We read about decisions in the newspapers. This is the first time that we have been invited as a community to come out and (talk about) this project.”
Little concern was raised from attendees regarding the proposed layout of the school. However, its actual location, near the Athabasca Regional Multiplex, appeared to raise a red flag.
“From what I see so far, urban planning has been totally neglected in this project and it's kind of abysmal,” said an attendee. “So, as far as where I'm coming from, is it worth building the school? Obviously I'm not in charge, but I'm not 100-per-cent convinced that this school is worth building in the urban planning phase that it's at.”
“I'm not satisfied that we're doing the right thing,” said another attendee. “There's some things that I have a feeling (weren’t) looked at in the selection process of the sites.”
Francis attempted to mitigate the concerns expressed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we need a new school (and) we got a new school,” he said. “Is the road up there perfect? It's not. Is there a gravel road servicing it? Absolutely. (Are) there going to be issues with where kids go at noon hour? Yes.
“But, any place where we build a new school in this province, there's going to be pros and there's going to be cons. I would respectfully submit to you that the biggest pro of this site is we got a new school.”
Francis noted that the Athabasca District Chamber of Commerce has no real objections to moving the school away from businesses, and he added that there already is infrastructure near the multiplex.
“The one thing that the multiplex did right when it was built is it brought services up there,” he explained. “The services are sufficient to hook up a 1,000-capacity school tomorrow. The tie-in to the school is a very low cost and no cost to the town,” he said.
Despite the objections to the location, Francis said it’s a deal-breaker: if the school isn’t up by the multiplex, then there is no school project.
“I have to say this: if we had submitted a proposal for a standalone school, we would not be here today because we would not be getting a school,” he said.
“I will stand here and tell you today, if I had the choice between (the EPC) site fully serviced and the multiplex site fully serviced, I'm telling you as an educator, I'm telling you as a community member, and I'm telling you as a father: I would chose the multiplex site every single time.”
Not everyone in attendance didn’t like the project. There were some who were out to just see the new school designs.
“What I'm hearing is you have approval and funding for this project. If we try to move it, if we try to go back to consultation, if we do all that stuff, we’re all losing this school,” said an attendee.
“There are years ahead of us. LTIS needs replacing too, so if we've got more spaces, let's go there in the future.”
The next stage will be for architects to make more detailed drawings. They’ll bring them back to the school community sometime in September. There’ll also be another community meeting, likely at the multiplex, for input into the design.
The school board plans to go to tender in October with construction of the new school starting in the next building season.
