Editorials

2008 TPA Better Newspaper Contest

First Place D8

The Springtown Epigraph

Weatherford College has earned this vote

Bond will pay dividends for decades

Next Tuesday, Nov. 6, voters in Parker County will have a chance to vote on a $98.3 million bond package to help build the Weatherford College campus into a facility befitting the 21st-century educational dynamo this county needs and deserves.

The numbers have been reviewed in this paper several times, and they are stated again in the letter to the editor on this page by the college's president, Dr. Joe Birmingham. These bond funds will create 43 new classrooms and remodel others. They will build more labs, new student services facilities, improve and enlarge the library and PE facilities, and rebuild the college's aging infrastructure.

Weatherford College's enrollment has doubled in the past 10 years, while most of its buildings are 40 years old or more. The projects in this bond proposal are not pie-in-the-sky dreams based on growth that may never come — they are a measured, in fact, very conservative response to growth that is already here. In healthcare programs alone, Weatherford College turned away 400 prospective students this fall because it does not have room for them. The facilities in this proposal would create space for another 240 healthcare students, and allow the college's enrollment to grow by about 900 students.

This is only the third bond proposal in Weatherford College's 138-year history. If you're over 65, it won't raise the taxes on your homestead at all — they're frozen. If your taxes aren't frozen, it will cost you less than $30 a year to bring this fine educational institution into the 21st century.

After four straight years of cuts in the tax rate, this proposal would raise taxes back to less than a quarter-cent more than they were in 2001-2002. The college is using more than $25 million in other resources to put with the $98.3 million in bond money to do this $125-million makeover.

We hesitate to call anything a "no-brainer" — but this is the smartest bond proposal we've seen in years, from any entity. Weatherford College pumps millions back into the local economy because it educates and equips students directly for the workforce — Parker County students, your kids and ours.

When it comes to spending tax money wisely, in a way that will repay itself over and over, for decades to come, this is as good as it gets. Please go out and vote, and vote for this proposal. They've done their homework and they deserve our support.