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On Nov. 7, voters will have a chance to approve funding to help Steamboat Springs Schools continue their history of providing a first class education to local children. As the principal of Strawberry Park Elementary, I would like to make a passionate plea for your "yes" vote on issues 3C and 3D.

Issue 3D will provide a replacement for the 50-year-old Soda Creek school and provide 10 additional classrooms and a much needed update to the 25-year-old Strawberry Park Elementary. There is not much room for argument that these projects are a viable need in our community. There is an argument about some of the funding issues. Please know while the Colorado School Finance Act only allows for property taxes to be used to fund building projects, all taxpayers, not just local property owners, share that burden. Anyone who pays rent or does business locally will help pay, not just the property taxpayers. Property and business owners can pass along the cost to renters, retail customers, lodging customers or anyone else coming to our valley to do business. It is a shared cost. And that cost is minimal, about $100 per year (tax deductible at that) on a $450,000 home.

Some voters complain that they have no children or their children have already completed school. Who do you think paid for your schooling? And that of your children? The generation ahead of you and all citizens shared the burden. We all have a shared responsibility to provide schools with the tools to help children become productive members of society. What cost will you incur later if students don't receive a quality education?

Should students be educated in a 50 year-old building that has outlasted its useful life when all around them they see examples of what we value; New malls, highways, hospitals, a first class jail? Do we merely give lip service to education as a priority? And what of safety? When these two schools were built, school safety was not an issue. The passage of this bond issue will address safety at both sites.

Issue 3C will provide additional funds for salaries to retain and recruit quality staff. It will help to stop the devastating flood of teacher turnover in our resort town. Steamboat Springs is dead last among resort communities in providing local over-ride funding to schools.

Our hands are tied in how we can provide funding, and we need your yes vote to help us educate our children and provide them with safe, quality schools, and caring, talented teachers. Please support our schools and our children with a yes vote on 3C and 3D. Thank you.