The Centralia High School Board has approved a $737-thousand bid from Rooters Asphalt to resurface the high school track.
Superintendent Dr. Chuck Lane says Rooters Asphalt was the low bidder.
“This is the original track that’s been there since 2006,” Lane said. “We’ve had it resprayed twice, and now we’re getting to the point where we need to actually replace the whole thing. We bid it last spring, and it was getting late in the school year, and the bids were getting higher than this. We decided we wanted to rebid it at this time with a bit of a different parameter on it to make sure it got done this summer. We were happy with the bids that came in, and we’re looking forward to getting that done this spring.”
The board agreed to limit its property tax levy increase at the December meeting, avoiding the need for a Truth in Taxation Hearing.
“With the multiplier being twelve percent, we could have gone higher than that. Like I said tonight, we’ve had some good years. We are going to adjust to spend probably this year some, but we have reserves still to cover that until the property values kind of level off. For years it’s been one or two percent, then in the last three or four years there’s just been an explosion of property value. One of the things that does is, if the property values go up and we don’t ask for that, then our rate will go down.”
The board agreed to support a 12-year extension of Centralia’s downtown tax increment financing district. Centralia Economic Development Director Rob Jackson reports five of the seven taxing bodies in the district have now committed support to the extension.
The board has completed the transfer of a vacant lot at 611 South Pine that will be the site of the building trades next new home.
The board approved three volunteer assisting bass fishing coaches. They are Clutch Williams, Ronnie Donoho and Randy Huck. The board approved Traci Hency as girls’ assistant basketball coach.
In lieu of expulsion, the board placed one student who had weapons and a vape on school property to the Alternative Learning Center. Another student who had a weed pen on school property has agreed to graduate early as long as he has met all requirements in lieu of expulsion.
