Personally, I’d just like someone to explain to me how annexation COULD be fiscally profitable at this point. All evidence presented thus far has been debunked because the maps didn’t match the data. I’d just like to see the pie-in-the-sky projections that show me that with x% of annexed commercial property and x number of students, annexation would be profitable. Right now, we don’t even have that.

If CSD is worried about annexation, I believe the burden of proof is now on the city and its commissioners to show that their solution to our high taxes is even feasible. They’ve freely said they have been talking about annexation for years…and though they haven’t legally done anything but talked about it yet, there are still repercussions to simply talking.

If they’re going to keep talking about annexation then they need to show the general public at least how it would work out for us. Give us the best-case scenario. Then at least everyone can look at the numbers and come to their own conclusions.

Even though its not the detailed demographic study that you mention above, just having some sort of idea is better than the bogeyman of the unknown that sounds like its spooking the reconfiguration committee into building a potentially unnecessary building.

And just one more thing to back up this suggestion philosophically. If we’re going to talk about being a “green” city, it is imperative that we continue to act like one. Allowing CSD to build a massive building that goes largely unused, because the commission is “talking” about annexation, would be a serious waste of energy…both to build and maintain.

This is where good communication helps solve a problem, at least temporarily. Does the city commission know that CSD is considering this expansion because of its annexation talk? Do they feel at all responsible to do something about it? Because inadvertently…they are a big part of the cause.

The trouble with the idea that the commission makes its decision now, I think, is summed up by your statement that we still don’t know if annexation is even profitable, given that we still don’t have a handle on the crucial variable of the student count. To be serious about considering annexation, we would need (among other things) to conduct a new, state-of-the-art demographic analysis. That analysis would have to broken down area by area. It would have to take into account, not only the current population, but projected in-migration resulting from annexation. It would have to take into account those areas that are liable to see new residential development — such as the old DeVry campus, already being rezoned as mixed use, as well as Suburban Plaza and others. I assume that to do such a study right, we would need 2010 census numbers to start with, which won’t be available until 2011. The projections would need to be sophisticated in order to get at age distribution, so CSD could think about how it would handle the numbers grade by grade and school by school. It’s a huge undertaking, and we’re nowhere near being in a position to do this.

I’ll add that this should also be funded by the city (it’s their agenda), but handled by the schools. And, unlike in the City Report on Annexation, the schools would need to handle all of their own financial projections based on those numbers.

So if the city commission were to decide right now, it’s decision would have to be no. I don’t think it will surprise you to hear that I would find that a huge relief. But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for that decision to be made any time soon for the sake of the our public schools.

At ASC, we recently opened up an email “hotline” for members of the ASC community to send in their ideas for how to save money/be more sustainable around campus. I think Pres. Kiss and others have been very pleasantly surprised at not just the number of ideas that have come in, but also the quality of the ideas. They are already implementing some of the ideas. Maybe some kind of email “hotline” would be a good idea for CSD to get input from community. If you ask people for ideas, they’ll start really thinking about it instead of just lashing out. And they’ll definitely feel like they’re a part of the solution.

Determining the fiscal viability of annexation now, would take one of many unknowns off the table now for CSD. If its determined it can work, CSD should probably prepare for even more students. If not, then we aren’t building unnecessarily. And all the city and school would have to do is push-up the execution of something it sounded like they were already going to do.