DOVER — Superintendent Jerry Owens said he was “on cloud nine” after Tuesday’s special election in which Dover School District patrons approved a millage increase for a construction project.
He came down long enough Wednesday afternoon to meet with architect Phil Purifoy of Little Rock and construction manager Paul Hull of Van Horn Construction of Russellville.
“We’ll start construction in about four months,” Owens said. The project is estimated to take 16 months to complete, he said.
The estimated $10.65 million project includes building a middle school complex — 26 classrooms, a safe room and a physical-education facility — and renovating 10 classrooms at the lower middle school.
Tuesday was the third time in less than two years that the district has tried to get a millage-increase proposal passed for the project. The proposal passed 696-546.
“In this day and age, that’s a pretty good margin,” Owens said. “This is the largest turnout we think we’ve ever had, certainly that anybody can remember. The last election, we had under 600 people voting. More people voted for it this time than even voted total last time.
“Volunteers, parents and staff got involved; they’re the ones who made the difference,” Owens said. “We had so many of our people out, and we had our kids out on the street. It was just like a parade before the polls closed, and they were holding up signs. It was really festive, and I really think that made a difference.”
A 3.5-mill property-tax increase was narrowly defeated in a Feb. 1, 2014, special election. Prior to that, a 5.5-mill increase failed in a September 2013 school election.
“After the last election, there were people coming into the board meeting almost in a panic, ‘What have we done? What have we not done? We have to have this school,’” Owens said. “We got parents involved; we got staff members involved in calling folks; we tried to do more Facebook media. So, certainly, there was a sense of desperation.
“[Voters] realized the state was offering us $4.44 million, and on top of that, our middle school is in such a bad condition. This is not a luxury; we were going to have to do something,” Owens said.
The district received two extensions on state Partnership Program funds from the Arkansas Division of Public School Academic Facilities and Transportation. Owens said it wasn’t likely the district would have received another extension if the millage hadn’t passed.
Karla Bowden, a parent and chairwoman of the Dover Millage Committee, said, “It’s been an exhausting journey.”
Bowden said that although she’s relieved that the proposal passed, she was surprised the approval margin wasn’t greater.
“It wasn’t much of a difference, which I was kind of shocked, just because of the response we got,” she said. “We were out all day on the side of the road, holding signs up, and some of the kids [were], too. We had about 50 people waiting outside the polling place when it was over,” who were waiting to get results, she said.
“I think it was just more of a community effort. I think a lot of people who were for this forgot to vote in the previous one, or just didn’t [intend to] vote. We tried to find people who had an interest in this that were going to be vested. There were kids, parents, all the committee members, a ton of staff.”
She said Owens and board members asked what they could do differently after the first two defeats. Bowden suggested pulling in the community more.
“We started assigning people different tasks to get on board, and it all fell into place,” Bowden said.
Changes were made to the plans after each of the last two millage elections. A multipurpose athletic facility was nixed, but the second proposal still failed. This time, the entrance was redesigned to save money.
“This is something we stressed in our campaign — a couple of things we heard in the past elections that people were very upset or concerned about — one was spending too much money above what we need,” Bowden said. “[The design] was kind of simplified; you’re still getting a very sound, modern facility, but without these bells and whistles on the outside.”
Another issue was the Works Progress Administration gymnasium. Many residents are sentimental regarding the gym, Owens and Bowden said.
“We have an older community, and the old gym was an issue,” Bowden said.
Owens said state officials told the district the gym was inadequate and that it would take $1 million to renovate.
“Even then, the old gym would not have the required floor space to meet today’s regulations,” he said in an earlier interview.
Bowden said a memory preservation committee created for the beloved gym will continue.
The 76-year-old facility likely won’t be torn down for a year or two, she said.
“I talked to the construction manager,” Bowden said. “We had talked about doing a ceremony, like they did when they retired Boston Garden [home of the NBA’s Celtics basketball team]. We’ve got a couple of different thoughts that we’re going to do to make this a memorable event,” she said.
Parts of the building will be saved, Owens said.
The slogan for the millage committee was “Remembering the Past, Focusing on the Future,” and that’s what officials said they’ll do.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.