Letter to the Editor: Mt. Blue/Foster Tech Learning Campus a must-have for Franklin County

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We have a tremendous opportunity in front of us. A referendum for the Mt. Blue and Foster Technology Learning Campus is slated for the ballot on September 15 and it couldn’t come at a better time. It is important that we all support this project because the learning campus will be a great addition to the Mt. Blue Regional School District and to all of greater Franklin County. The new learning campus will be a huge asset to the area, both in attracting families and professionals, and attracting new business investments. As the director of the Greater Franklin Development Corporation, I know how important it is to bring new jobs into the greater Franklin County area and I believe that the Mt. Blue / Foster Tech Learning Campus is going to make that task much easier.

In 2004, SAD 9 applied for state funding to renovate Mt. Blue High School and the Foster Technology Center. Project approval means that the state agrees to pay for approximately 95% of the cost of the $64.2 million project. The school district will raise 1%, approximately $683 thousand, through grants, gifts, and fundraising. Voting in favor of the referendum allows Mt. Blue Regional School District to accept about $60 million in state funding.

For a project so comprehensive and impressive, there is no reason not to welcome it eagerly. Locals will end up paying about $3.5 million for the whole project, which includes new classroom space, on-site alternative energy sources, more parking, and more athletic fields. Spaces to train for public safety, firefighting, and law enforcement are included.

Innovative business incubators will allow for start-up businesses to access state of the art equipment, which they cannot yet afford, while giving them the added support of a student body eager for hands-on-training and experience in fields they may hope to work in as adults. Once these businesses are able to stand on their own, they leave the incubator in search of their own success, leaving the space ready for a new start-up. There is no better way to integrate the school with the surrounding towns, or to allow the school to give back to the communities that supported its creation.

The $64.2 million project will stimulate the area through approximately 300 construction jobs and the purchasing of building materials over a three-year period. Other benefits that will be realized by our communities will be the use of local contractors wherever possible, followed by the contractors’ spending on food, lodging, fuel, and other construction related services. Once it is completed, the Mt. Blue / Foster Tech Learning Campus will join the University of Maine at Farmington and the Franklin Community Health Network as one of the outstanding assets enjoyed by Franklin County.

Young families will be drawn to the area by the opportunities offered to their children. Businesses are going to be attracted by a new, state-of-the-art school complex and by the influx of young, employable workers. Students graduating from Mt. Blue/Foster Tech will be more ready than their predecessors either to enter the Franklin County workforce or to begin a college career in the same town where they excelled in high school.

The renovations planned for Mt. Blue/Foster Tech are remarkable. They will change the face of the school district and of the greater community. Franklin County is being offered the chance of a lifetime, because without state funding, this project would be impossible. We are being asked to contribute very little towards the total cost of these renovations. Five percent is almost nothing, especially considering what a state-of-the-art learning center will do for our economy and our community.

Support for this project is vital. On September 15, we can come together for the good of the community by voting in favor of the Mt. Blue Regional School District referendum to accept plans for the renovation of Mt. Blue High School / Foster Technology Learning Campus.

Alison Hagerstrom
Farmington
 

Alison Hagerstrom is the executive director of the Greater Franklin Development Corporation in Farmington, Maine.

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8 Comments

  1. If you think the school will provide local jobs and material sales…your wrong…..such sites can only be built by companies from away. They have the equipment and people who know how to build such buildings. It takes high steel workers and lots of different equipment. Please stop dreaming with taxpayers money.I don’t care if the State is paying the brunt. It is still my tax money. It is so sad that people in Farmington are trying to make it a lala land. This is not Mass. or NJ, it is MAINE! Feel free to pay my share if you are so set on destroying Maine culture. If your so set on new buildings then give all senior citizens a tax break! You pay for the waste!

  2. I agree Alison. We are much too quick to think that the primary purpose of government is to cut taxes. We like to say that our children are our most important asset. In reality, too many demure if it’s going to cost them the price of a case of beer or a carton of cigarettes.

    I too am a vet, I am a senior living on a fixed income and have seen my retirement savings decimated by the unregulated antics of the past few Washington administrations.

    I’m not wealthy, but I am anxious that generations to come attend schools in buildings that don’t leak, are not overcrowded and are equipped with the equipment necessary to prepare them for life in the 21st century. Most importantly, I am willing to pay my share of the costs for that to happen.

    The purpose of government is to provide for the common good – the Constitution even specifies that in the Preamble. If you can read it, thank a teacher.

  3. I can read this and I do thank the teacher….but not the building…lets improve the teaching first! You may pay my share if you wish.

  4. To start off with I left this area back in 2003 once I graduated from Mt. Blue high school and FRATC. I have come back home for my job and deal with all the seniors and juniors from Jay HS and Mt. Blue HS along with Mt. Abram HS. And have seen a significant change in the students that go to these schools. A lot of them are coming to grip with reality that there is nothing for them here in and around Franklin county and are leaving the area to pursue careers else where. And for the saying that they are going to get a better education from a new school house and it’s over crowded if you looked at the numbers you would see that the enrollment of students has been dropping over the years. People are leaving this area. I know myself said I would never live back here again when I left because there is not anything here any more. And it’s only going to get worse. And I am sure that there are brand new schools in the slums of the city’s that don’t attract new people to the area because of the way the buildings look like. What will attract new people are more employment and more business opertunities. And as for MBRSD 9 getting grant money and other money from the state where does all that come from. Us the tax payers that are working to support this and every other person around here that is living off from state aid.

  5. I see the arguments being made against this renovation project. No one wants to see their money going where they don’t want it. But face it, the state government allocates funds every year to school building and renovation projects. That budget isn’t going to change if we vote against this specific project; the change will be where the funding goes. There is an extremely long list of schools in Maine looking for government funding for improvements, and if we as a town decide we aren’t interested in the project, $63 million is going to go to some other school system in Maine. And we’ll STILL be paying for it.

    So do you want your taxes going to improving the school system and community where you live, or to a community we don’t care about full of children who aren’t ours?

  6. I believe the $2.08 per month should read $2.08 per thousand per month… I am going to have to find a cheaper property I guess.

  7. There are many skilled construction workers and companies right here in Maine very capable of doing the entire project.
    I say a Maine based company get’s the contract (and every subcontractor MUST be from MAINE!!!)

    If a out of state company get’s the job it would be a slap in the face of our own local workforce.

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