The School District has so mangled the Museum issue, it has put the bond for rebuilding our high schools in jeopardy.
Building community involves working within trusted relationships for common purposes. For over 30 years the School District has joined the Museum in long-established and ongoing agreements for community benefit. Sadly, the current leadership has taken a different approach.
The District has ignored formal resolutions by the Shoreline and Lake Forest Park councils, calling for the Museum to remain in its own building.
The District has ignored the $1.5 million in public money invested in the Museum’s building, all of the City’s budget allocations, and the donations of time and money by members, supporters and visitors.
The District excluded the Museum, as a stakeholder, from planning the Shorewood campus.
The District made a disingenuous (rejected) offer to share space with the Museum, knowing the limits on space would not provide for the Museum’s essential functions.
The District is leading the community toward litigation by not honoring its obligations and ignoring the compelling arguments that refute its own positions on the lease, deed, fair rent and other issues.
The District wants to disfigure the interior of an historic landmark building to find a use for it, rather than acknowledge that experiencing a building fully preserved as the Museum, is what gives it such tremendous value.
So much for building community.
The District says the land is needed for education and parity with Shorecrest, which is absurd. If more acreage is a measure of education, then are Shorecrest students already 32 percent better educated than Shorewood students? If we add four-tenths of an acre (Museum) to 26 acres (Shorewood) does it get anywhere near 38 acres (Shorecrest)?
If this were about education, the District would keep the Museum. History is still taught, right? The only education here is a lesson on dismembering a beloved institution for a meager plot of land, dividing the community, and, likely, defeating your own purpose in the process.
The District must learn that the community does not want this heavy-handed dealing done with our taxes. We want to build community, not tear it apart.
It’s time for the District to put an end to this debacle and make a commitment to the community, realize the solution is a design that keeps the Museum in its own building, and acknowledge that a Museum is a great asset on any school campus. Then we could all vote for the bond just as we wanted to in the first place.
Jan Stewart
Shoreline
