HomeMy WebLinkAboutItem 6 - Smith School Item 6—Smith School (Comments from a concerned resident)
I am concerned that another William's Water's building is about to ripped down.
1, behind the scenes, opposed the closing of Dale School. It ended up in the hands of
Flintrop's partner officially and unofficially. I heard that Flintrop was a silent partner.
I opposed the push to close Longfellow School and went with the parents to the Board
Meeting. I suddenly found myself assigned to the schools with the most problem
children (Gangs which even the police department denied existed.) Longfellow was
closed and the rumor at Mercy where Jean worked was that Mercy wanted Longfellow
as a parking lot. Even when they later owned the Longfellow site, Mercy made no
attempt to put a parking lot on the site.
Then one day I was researching for someone at the Court House and stumbled across
Smith's original deed for Smith School. If not used for education it was to be returned to
Smith's descendants - now too many to make closing Smith an option and of WCHAS
that used its influence to save what we could of the shell of the. Behind the scenes at
Smith I always felt that someone was urging the Board to sell the building so that it
could be made into apartments like Dale.
Read was next. Terry Laab organized a group that made noise and while the school
had problems only shell was able to be saved. The WCHAS through its influence
publicly got behind the effort.
Jefferson was totally lost because parents did not seem to have enough pride to
organize and make noise.
Now the Board is trying to destroy the William Water's part of Smith again.
In all the William Water's cases above, the Board did not properly keep up the buildings
and did not plan for replacement costs that would eventually come due. It is my opinion
from working in these William Water's buildings that the Board never intended to
properly maintain the buildings. Other schools have been closed while I have lived in
Oshkosh. Boyd, Grange, Green Meadow which had a better building than Lakeside
which they kept, and Sunset where I had a pile of snow under my feet on snowy windy
days. Only Oaklawn was rebuilt which also had snow in class rooms.
The best I can hope for now at my age is that the WCHAS would publicly support saving
the original William Water's building.
P.S. I need to add names to my email addresses to send everyone on the Board my
note.