Editor,

I recently read a mailing from the South Whidbey School District discussing the upcoming school bond proposal. How unfortunate it is that the school district has chosen to hide the true cost of this proposal and purposely give the voters false information to get this passed.

Specifically, the school district made the statement this bond proposal would cost no more than approximately $79.8 million. This is the amount of the bond principal only! When you factor in the interest payments of $58.837 million, the bond proposal has a total cost of $138.637 million. The school district hasn’t mentioned this and never will because they are afraid if the voters knew of this deception, they would soundly vote no!

In addition, the South Whidbey School District has never explained where all the money they received in Covid funds went nor how previous bond proposals were spent, or why they insist on using bonding mechanisms instead of more efficient and cost-effective levies like other, larger school districts for the same type of projects.

What the voters need is solid transparency on this and other bond proposals. Unfortunately, it appears the school district has no interest in providing all the information voters need to make a truthful and honest decision.

I urge everyone to vote no on this bond proposal. As has been said before, we simply cannot afford it.

David Adams

Langley