Comments about ‘Utah Legislature: Bill calls for seismic upgrades of Utah school buildings’

I teach at a 60-year-old all-brick, two-story junior high school, Evergreen Jr. High. To show you the urgency of updating our building, we just had the asbestos floor tile removed only three years ago! As was said after the recent earthquake in Haiti, it's buildings that kill, not the earthquake itself. I'm no expert, but I would predict that if we had a similar earthquake during school hours, our building would collapse and I would guess most of the 850 students and teachers would lose their lives. It shows the priority of this state and its leaders when it can spend millions upgrading the Capitol building for seismic precautions, but no consideration given to the tens of thousands of school children. I realize the state doesn't have the money for this, but really, how much is a life worth?

Nobody in this state is worth a penny. This is the capital of elitism. You and I are trash to our representatives. Lets stop mixing words.

I feel it is better to build new schools to current standards, than try to retrofit. There is still no guarantee that a building will not collapse is an earthquake.

It is funny how the Canyons officials claim they have "inherited" their school buildings. The more accurate word should be "taken." Most of the people that live in the Canyons were part of the Jordan School District including when some of the buildings were built. They were just as culpable in creating the problem and doing nothing about it when they were part of the district. Blaming the current Jordan School District for the state of their buildings is ridiculous, disingenuous, and obnoxious. In fact, it reminds me of Obama blaming Bush for everything.

Who are you kidding?

We don't spend money to upgrade buildings in Utah.

Unless it is for the legislators themselves. They are most important. Haven't we seen that time and time again? Just look at the budget cuts and every bill geared towards education.

Didn't they spend $200,000,000 to build themselves new offices just two years ago? Yes those zeroes are the right amount.

Incredible.

I don't know how these guys sleep at night.

I think that this is a good idea after what happend in Haiti.

The work on the buildings in Canyons was moving forward before the split, though slowly. Sandy after the fire was fixed up and Copperview was completely rebuilt. Midvalley and Midvale were on the agenda for rebuild status when the next bond would be issued.

Claiming woe is me all the time is not going to engender support from those who will be voting for the bonds. I hope they can pass one in Canyons, but the current economy and the promises of cutting taxes yet to be fulfilled are going to keep people being angry all the time. Angry people vote. Since most of the upgrades are in the poorer areas, CSD is going to have to play politics with the wealthier areas just to get the basics done. THat would mean new buildings in Draper before getting to the folks in Midvale.

@Anonymous | 9:22 a.m. Feb. 20, 2010

"Ridiculous, disingenuous, and obnoxious"

How can you even make those kinds of comments after looking at the pictures of assistant principal Kerry Schroeppel and the HUGE cracks in the foundation of his elementary school? Those pictures are both humbling and frightening. To think what could happen to those elementary school kids -- hundreds of them -- if an earthquake were to happen ... it makes your stomach sink. For Jordan District to ignore those problems for years as it collected money for its brand new schools is unconscionable. If we all share a responsibility in the education of children, I don't know how the children in Midvale can be ignored.

Everybody wants to do it--nobody has the money. Read the article carefully. It will cost $9.3 billion to do the seismic upgrades. That is many times more than the annual state education budget. Why do we want to spend money conducting a study on a problem we know exists but are powerless to fix?

Why spend all that money?

Most people here believe we can't
do anything about the
Valley Inversion or Global Warming
-- because it's all God's will.

Eathquakes are even more difficult to understand.

[Utah conservativists are just silly]

Why waste money on a study, all they have to do is look at the blueprints. Then to upgrade schools is an even bigger waste and would cost more to do than building a new school.

I had always assumed that schools and public building would have been built better to withstand earthquakes and used as disaster centers. However, with narrow minds it seems that our legislators consider schools throwaway buildings costing millions of dollars.

Why aren't schools built with earthquakes shelters in mind? We put hundreds and thousands of children in each school that are prone to collapse with strong winds. With so much hindsight now the best we can do is secure gas and water equipment from falling over. But if the whole building collapses that won't help much.

It should be standard requirement that schools be built earthquake proof and established as emergency shelters. The cost during building would be minimal compared to going back and trying to retrofit them with make-shift ideas and wasting money. Utah schools can't even handle ground settling let alone a disaster.

The point that was being made was NOT that the repairs were unnecessary, but that half the current Canyons Board members were formerly members of the Jordan Board. The cerrent Canyons boundaries have ALWAYS had representation on the Jordan Board, and for most of existence had a majority. They could've fixed their own neighborhood schools.

So please stop blaming the current Jordan School District. Blame the old District that the Canyons was a part of. THEY, collectively, did nothing.

Jordan was started on rebuilding schools. They rebuilt Copperview Elementary and Jordan High School (the most expensive and impressive school they built so far) on the East side presumably with earthquake upgrades in mind, and Heartland on the West. They had a long way to go.

The political climate made it impossible to go about tearing down and rebuilding all the schools on the east and the west that need to be. It isn't just the East side schools that are in danger to faults toppling them over. MOST of our schools aren't sufficient to survive a major earthquake.

We have to prioritize, deciding which schools need fixing first. You can bet that Midvale as a school is a goner. The question is do the people in Canyons have the heart to pay for it without getting something in return on a bond?

I once had a district maintenance worker come into my room and draw a straight line across the cinder block wall with a pencil and ruler. He then marked the date. When I asked what he was doing he said, "this wall is shifting. We mark it each year to see how much it shifts."

I was on the bottom floor with a classroom above me.

The problems are growth and underfunding. How do you tear down functional, albeit seismically unsafe, schools to build new when there is growth and you actually need brand new places to put people? Probably every home and building built before 1970 is unsafe in a strong enough earthquake. Put unless we want HUGE tax increases, it won't/can't happen.

And if you want to throw billions more at education, there are so many other more basic things to take care of.

Safety should take priority over growth. That IS the problem, it hasn't.

Wiley is creating business for himself. He's a building inspector.

It has already been determined that the schools need seismic upgrades. It is also been determined that the school districts do not seem to have the necessary funds. Therefore we should not spend our efforts in debate but in changing the situation we have, like working to get the school districts more funds.

So Menlove says the study would cost $1.7 mil but then goes on to say the upgrades would cost $9.3 bil- has he or the USOE already done a study?

This bill isn't reasonable. Schools that are built now are all built to modern safety standards. Older buildings were not. In a district like Jordan that needs both new schools for growth and then upgrades or rebuilds of old schools, I don't see how you increase class sizes by not building the new school. Old schools are being replaced as they fall into disrepair, but that's typically 50 years or more. I think the districts are doing the best they can.

How could Jordan not have fixed all the schools??? Well, would you have voted for a $500 million bond a decade ago for "seismic upgrades???" I don't think that would've passed.