Dear Editor:

Thank you for your endorsement of my effort to think “outside the box” when it comes to finding money for education. Especially in times like this, when the Legislature has just passed a series of taxes to help fill the deficit in the state’s budget, local governments are going to have a tough time raising money when they need it.

Roughly two years ago, while the School Board was looking for ways to meet its share of funds to rebuild Lake Pontchartrain  Elementary School, it came to me: If the state can make millions by selling the naming rights to the Superdome and the New Orleans Arena, why couldn’t the St. John School Board do the same thing?

When East St. John Elementary burned a year later, the idea took on even more urgency. The bare-bones plan recently approved by the School Board for its renovation was the LEAST expensive of three alternatives.

It cut out a proposed science lab, a computer lab and an indoor gym. Restrooms for kindergarten classrooms were dropped, along with some recommended paved parking between the school and the football stadium. There just wasn’t enough money.

From what I understand, there is nothing in the law that would keep us from selling the name of either school — or any other school — for a period of years. If I’m not mistaken Mercedes-Benz gets to tag its name onto the Dome for 20 years.

Smoothie King’s right to rename the Arena also has a time limit. When they expire the state has the right to re-sell the facilities’ names and use the money to refurbish or rebuild them. Why can’t schools do the same?

In an abundance of caution, we first need to run it past the District Attorney (who is officially the School Board’s lawyer) or perhaps ask for an Attorney General’s opinion. That’s what I asked the rest of the School Board to do.

My motion failed by a vote of 3-6, with two members absent. I believe that most who voted “no” simply didn’t understand. I’m hoping to try again soon, after I’ve talked with some of them.

As you pointed out, School Boards and Parish governments can’t keep “going back to the well” time after time, asking voters for tax after tax.

We owe it to the people we were elected to serve to occasionally try something else. And I want to be first, instead of waiting for someone else to try.

Everyone, it seems, is in a race to be Second. Every now and then I’d like St. John Parish to be First. And sometimes that requires thinking outside the box.

Russ Wise,
St. John the Baptist Parish School Board member