It’s come up once, twice and then again – the proposed new high school project.

City and county leaders had the opportunity to hear the proposal from School District officials during the November 28th joint City – County meeting. Not surprisingly, many elected leaders are choosing to stay neutral on the issue.

Geary County USD 475 may be facing an uphill battle in gaining the trust of the community, especially when it’s leaders are remaining mum.

Hugh Davis, USD 475 Executive Director of Communications, said that elected official’s public support will be essential for this proposed projection to come to fruition. “This is a community decision and it has a very big community impact as we talk about the future decline or growth of Junction City we have to look at where does this project fit in the economic growth of Junction City.”

Former School Board member Mark Roeser expressed strong opposition to the new school proposal pointing to a depressed market, difficulty running businesses in Geary County,and a lack of expected growth in the community amongst other things.

One JC Post user (delmar) commented:  “This whole issue has been completely mishandled from the beginning. Secret gatherings to create a quasiofficial committee, meetings held at times inaccessible to many citizens, sudden pronouncements out of nowhere about previously unknown ‘options’. I believe these decisions are going to alienate the voters the issue will need to pass.”

Davis said that he believes those types of sentiments are the result of a lack of understanding. “They’re confusing a proposal with options that are being discussed…there is no secret meetings, we’ve been discussing in Board meetings our plans in terms of what the Board of Education charged us with doing early on which was to put a steering committee together and that was done at a public session, at a Board meeting, and then every Board meeting since we have shared information that has come from that committee.”

As for the sharp criticism of the District, Davis said that they have tried to incorporate community feedback as much as possible. “Everyone has an opinion and we are striving to get those opinions from the Steering Committee and then going a little bit extra and including a telephone [and online] community survey to get in put on people’s thoughts and comments on where they think the District should go in terms of renovating, building new, or building at a new site and how we should finance it.”

Board of Education meetings are public, and the schedule can be viewed here. Davis said that all Steering Committee meetings are held in the Cafeteria at Junction City High School and not closed off to the public. For more information the Steering Committee meetings click here.

A new high school facility could be the deciding factor for military families choosing where to live or to send their children to school, as well as potentially hosting state tournaments – something that can not be done at the school’s current state, according to Davis.