School Board Chair Marieze Tarr has rejected an offer from the Town of Osoyoos to provide more than $1 million over three years to keep Osoyoos Secondary School open. (Richard McGuire file photo)
The board of trustees with School District 53 has rejected an offer from the Town of Osoyoos to provide more than $1 million over three years to keep Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) open.
The rejection came Tuesday morning in a letter from school board chair Marieze Tarr to Osoyoos Mayor Sue McKortoff.
This makes it almost certain the school board would approve third and final reading Wednesday evening of a bylaw to close OSS.
Last week McKortoff sent two letters to Tarr, two days apart, one holding out a carrot and the other a stick.
For the carrot, the town was prepared to provide SD 53 with more than $1 million over three years to keep OSS open. This offer was contained in a letter McKortoff sent to Tarr last Tuesday.
For the stick, the town is threatening legal action if SD 53 closes the high school, unless the school board delays the closure for at least a year to find other solutions.
“After careful consideration, the board has determined that it must decline your offer of financial assistance,” Tarr wrote in her April 26 response.
She acknowledged the town’s offer was not illegal, but she said it would not be “consistent with the spirit and intent of the School Act funding provisions, which are aimed at providing equal access to educational programs for all students.”
The town had offered an annual grant of $352,000 over three years conditional on OSS staying open.
To provide that funding, the town could seek the assent of electors through a referendum, it could use an alternate approval process or it could fund the grant from the existing budget by delaying other projects.
This funding would include a contribution from Area A in the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS). Council would also be approaching the Osoyoos Indian Band to provide financial assistance, the mayor’s letter said.
The town was also prepared to provide operational services such as mowing grass or snow removal up to $15,000 in machine and manpower services, and to discontinue charging water and sewer fees, worth $35,000 starting in the 2016-17 school year.
The town was also prepared to seek the assistance of other municipalities and utility purveyors in the school district to provide the same assistance.
Tarr cited other reasons for rejecting the town’s offer.
“Your proposal would require the board to suspend any decision to close Osoyoos Secondary without a concrete assurance that funding will be received,” Tarr wrote, noting that the town indicated it would need a two-month approval process.
If electors rejected the funding proposal, it would put the board in an “untenable position,” Tarr said.
She added that it’s unknown if other local governments would be interested in involving themselves in the financial decisions of another locally elected body.
And she rejected the idea of having town employees providing services to the school board, saying this would be a violation of the collective agreement with union support staff.
McKortoff noted that in a previous letter to the board, in which the town offered to provide funding to keep the school open, no amounts of funding were specified “due to the short timeframe associated with this challenge.”
The school board voted 4-3 to close OSS at a special meeting on April 6, but because there wasn’t unanimous consent, it could not give all three readings to the closure bylaw.
“This is a regional problem that needs the board to provide leadership and pull together the elected leadership of the entire SD 53 to work toward a shared positive solution,” McKortoff wrote. “By all appearances, the board’s solution for declining student enrolment will be to continue to ‘pick off the low-hanging fruit’ and continue to close schools. The ultimate result will be the demise of the entire SD 53.”
Two days later, last Thursday, McKortoff sent Tarr a second, much shorter letter, warning that the town is prepared to take legal action unless the school board delays closing Osoyoos Secondary School (OSS) for at least one year.
McKortoff said the delay would allow meaningful consultation with the Town of Osoyoos and other School District 53 constituents.
At a community school public forum last Thursday evening, Councillor C.J. Rhodes, in the role of acting mayor, told participants that legal action could take the form of a judicial review of the school district’s decision or a short-term court injunction to keep OSS open.
“The town is currently examining all the possible legal avenues to prevent the closure of the Osoyoos Secondary School,” Rhodes said.
Tarr took umbrage at the tone of McKortoff’s letters and the threat of legal action.
“The board remains concerned by the increasingly threatening and accusatory tone of the ongoing correspondence by the Town of Osoyoos,” Tarr wrote. “Letters that encourage residents and the public to speculate conspiracy, bias and illegal acts on the part of trustees and staff of the school district, and accompanying threats of legal action, are not consistent with the assertion that council wishes to work with the board in a co-operative and respectful manner. Any legal action in this case would have no merit and would not be consistent with the interests of students or electors.”
In an interview Sunday, before receiving Tarr’s letter, McKortoff explained the town’s approach.
“We’re trying to do absolutely anything that we can,” she said. “People in this town are so passionate about protecting our school that we’ve really tried to think differently. I’m not sure that this has been done before, but we’re willing to try it if it works.”
McKortoff said the town currently has lawyers looking into the situation, including at the process the school district used to close the school.
“We’re willing to do whatever it takes because we feel that this is so important to our town,” she said, noting that the combined population of Osoyoos and Area A is 7,500 people.
“To lose (Grade) 8 to 12 education is just not acceptable to us,” she said.
She added that Mark Pendergraft, RDOS chair and Area A representative, has been supportive of the town’s position and has been involved since the board first made public its plans to close OSS in mid-January.
Asked about some town residents who say they don’t want to pay to keep the school open and who say it didn’t kill them when they rode the bus to school many years ago, McKortoff said that’s not the issue.
“The bus issue is not the biggest issue. Not at all,” she said. “It’s the fact that you’re taking away a chance for economic development in this town.”
When people consider moving to Osoyoos, the first things they want to know are about the healthcare and education situations, she said.
If the school closes, they will move to other communities instead, she added.
“This is Canada’s warmest welcome and it’s the best place to live, but we definitely have things to overcome,” she said. “I’m not sure how it’s going to happen, but I assume this week we’ll find out a little more information.”
McKortoff also said she has not heard back from Education Minister Mike Bernier since requesting an urgent meeting with him after the school board voted April 6 to close OSS.
“I did have quite a lengthy chat the other day with the (NDP) opposition leader John Horgan, and he understands what we’re going through,” the mayor said.
Tarr did make one concession.
“It is possible for the municipality to discontinue charging water and sewer fees to the district,” she wrote. “We would be pleased to accept this offer of assistance to help address general budgetary constraints.”
RICHARD McGUIRE
Osoyoos Times
Mayor Sue McKortoff. (Richard McGuire file photo)
