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CITY MANAGER AND MAYOR ASK VICTORIA RESIDENTS TO STEP FORWARD City Manager Don Uram and Mayor Tom O'Connor put out a plea February 10th for residents to step forward and serve on the various city committees and commissions. "I want to go on record on encouraging applicants for the various vacancies," said Mr. Uram. "I ask councilmembers to encourage people to apply. March 24th is scheduled for interviews." Said Mayor O'Connor, "Park and Recreation is a good place for young people to get involved," said the mayor. "The Finance Committee needs qualified people. The Planning Commission involves detailed and hard work in the forefront of everything that gets done in the city. Please help our city."
WACONIA SCHOOL DISTRICT VISITS AND SPEAKS TO VICTORIA COUNCILMEMBERS Cathy Thom, a member of the School Board in the Waconia School District, spoke to councilmembers on February 24th. Although most of Victoria lies within the Eastern Carver County School District, part of Victoria also lies within the Waconia School District and the Minnetonka School District. Asked Councilmember Jim Crowley, viewing a map of the irregular school boundaries, "How were the school boundaries set? I wouldn't have drawn them this way." Replied Cathy Thom, "They were set on how the old country schools closed, and in the order that they closed." Mayor Tom O'Connor asked about the possibility of re-drawing school boundaries. She replied, "Only in consolidating with the smaller schools. Breaking off to go elsewhere hasn't happened in decades." "Your entire Lakebridge neighborhood is in our district," said Ms. Thom of the large new development west of downtown Victoria and south of Highway 5. Another Victoria neighborhood in the Waconia School District is Auburn Acres. Other cities in the Waconia School District include New Germany, Minnetrista, and St. Bonifacius plus area townships. "School enrollment has doubled in the last 15 years," said Ms. Thom. "Enrollment kept going up even during the recession. People who moved to Waconia before the recession had babies and babies grow up to go to school." "Our growth isn't just elementary school," she said. "The class in kindergarten is starting at 300. That number grows in 5th grade and again 9th grade." She referred to parochial and charter school kids who join public school at certain stages. "There are currently 3,700 kids in the District if we count heads," said Ms. Thom. "According to the state we have 4,000." "We're looking to partner even more with the cities," she said. "We don't partner at all with Victoria now. I'm your liaison on the school board." "We are in the process of hiring a new school superintendent," said Ms. Thom, in addition to searching for an assistant principal candidate in the system. She said there are currently no school board members from Victoria. They are all from Waconia. Some school board seats are up for election this fall. Filings occur in mid August. Councilmember Crowley pointed out there is also no resident of Victoria on the Eastern Carver County School Board. Mayor Tom O'Connor noted that neither Victoria nor Waconia have reached out to each other adequately. Good steps have now been taken. "We are going to need a new building," said Ms. Thom. "Our high school was built for 800 kids and we have now have 1,200. Additional classroom space was added in 2007, but the shared-use core areas were not expanded." "Our land is significantly cheaper on the west side rather than the east side," she added. "We're got the disparity of price going on." She explained to the Gazette, "Clearwater Middle School marks not just the end of Waconia city limits. It also marks the western end of the Met Council-controlled metropolitan area sanitary sewer line which runs along MN State Hwy 5 West. There are no plans to extend that sanitary sewer line for the next 15 to 30 years. Because of this, there is no guarantee of access to sanitary sewer, city storm sewer, nor city water lines to areas west of Clearwater within that time period. As a result, land west of Clearwater is much cheaper than the land to the east of it. Ready access to utilities causes property values to rise, even if they are currently zoned agricultural. Those to the west that do not or will not have access anytime soon to the utility upgrades remain lower in price." Waconia School District currently includes two elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school. "We hope to go out for a referendum by the fall of 2015," she said. "With a new superintendent coming onboard and much preparation work to do in regard to community input and consensus building, I believe that the fall of 2015 is probably the earliest by which we would make the attempt. That could change, of course. In the meantime we are reviewing and implementing myriad short-term space related solutions."
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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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March 2014 |
