At the October 1, 2002, Hudson School Board meeting, the case was made for building a new “eight/nine” building. After passing the school levy for the year, the board moved on to Item C, the eight/nine building. Watch the video here (about 15 minutes).

The board then moved on to Item D, the discussion of hiring an architect to “fast track” design the proposed building. After about 30 minutes discussion, it is revealed that the “vast majority” of $608,000 would be spent before the voters went to the polls to approve the building project. District Financial Director Arnie Fett suggests that this is reasonable since “if we agree that we’re always gonna use this plan, and we’re eventually gonna have this school….we know we’re gonna have this school”. Board member Nancy Donovan single handedly stops the proposal by proposing a motion not to allow more than $25,000 in spending for initial schematic design. This was the “Option One” that Fett and Board Member Muenich dismissed as impractical given the need to fast track the project. They wanted permission to spend $600,000 planning a school that hadn’t yet received voter approval.

Watch the whole video of discussion of Item D here (30 minutes).

Or watch these excerpts:

Superintendent Bernth admitting that his numbers were wrong about the enrollment increase for the year.

Superintendent Bernth making the claim that Middle School Enrollment would be 1206 in the 03-04 school year, WITHOUT ANY NEW GROWTH in the community. This outrageous manipulation of data used the assumption that 100% of St. Patrick’s sixth, seventh and eight graders would leave St. Pat’s and enroll at the HMS. Listen carefully, Bernth says he has added up all the sixth, seventh and eight graders in the district, etc. This claim later was copied by the School District’s paid media consultant, Meg Heaton, and distributed to every home in the district. It was an egregious misuse of statistics. Watch closely and you’ll see Supt. Bernth wink after this whopper. Actual enrollment at the Middle School has decreased in ’04-’05 and again in ’05-’06. Three years after this outrageous claim, the enrollment at the Middle School is almost identical to the enrollment in 2002 (between 1105 and 1107 this year). Doesn’t this make you smile?

Graph of actual enrollment at HMS

One last video clip from the 10/1/2002 School Board meeting- Bernth comments on proposals to build two school buildings at once, calling that “extraordinarily expensive”.

Learn more about the Hudson School Board here: Police action at 6/14/2005 Open Meetings Violation Home Page