They wouldn't print it verbatim, said it might constitute libel, so they dressed it up a little bit. I endorse this message:

They write the titles:

TAX DOLLARS ARE NOT "FREE" MONEY

Dear Editor:

Concerning the school demolition issues and in response to DeBari Martinez's comments:

Debari: None of your questions are going to be answered concerning the school demolition. The school board trustees have determined that there are no buyers for the schools. They have also determined that its free money that will pay to dispose of those schools. How dare you question their authority? Don't you realize that they were elected to act on our behalf and that's exactly what they are doing? Just sit back and be quiet because only the school board knows what will benefit the residents of Rawlins.

DeBari, you are mistaken about not receiving any input from the public. I pleaded, begged with the school board at those meetings to MARKET the schools and they flat out refused. They weren't even willing to come up with a price. They gave misleading information to the Rawlins Times and the Times printed it without questioning it. They conducted meetings (supposedly to satisfy the requirement that they do something), twiddled their thumbs, "brainstormed" and waited for buyers to come forth from the community and since nobody has, well then they must be demolished. Why? Because it's free money. Any money that comes from the state is free money.

You have two possible questions for the ultimate in financial mismanagement from our elected school board trustees. One, was it too much trouble for them to delegate to the district business manager to market the schools or do they have buddies in general contracting that are salivating for the demolition contract?

The money coming from the state is not free. Those are tax dollars paid with our property taxes and it's just this type of mismanagement that borders on corruption that will see that our property taxes remain elevated for perpetuity. Any type of government that is this inept and/or lazy is corrupt. With facilities of this magnitude and value, they exercised zero due diligence in their disposal. Waste on this type of scale is inexcusable.

Okay, so we had some financial genius from the community laud the school board for voting to demo the two schools (really beautiful brick buildings by the way, super expensive construction to duplicate), because it would "save" money and she pulled a figure out of her ass of $3000 a month to maintain the vacant schools. Here is my response:

Published today, 7/9

School demolition money could still be saved

Dear editor

In response to Traci Blaize's July 7 comments concerning the school buildings.

Everybody is entitled to uninformed and misleading opinions so I have to offer some corrections. You said, "No offers have been presented".

Of course no offers have been presented. Rawlins is a small town and if the way you market these facilities is by holding "hearings" locally that limits the exposure to less than 10,000 people.

Not only that, but the school district couldn't be troubled with developing a price. I am unaware of any realtor, business, entity in this nation that tries to market a property without placing a starting price on a piece of real estate. Nobody, anywhere makes you guess what the price is going to be and forces you to submit an offer based on that.

The buildings have been vacant and available since January, correct. But that shouldn't have stopped the school district board from marketing these facilities long before they were vacant. As of today, there is no contact person for marketing those facilities and if you want to tour them, too bad.

Yes, in one board meeting marketing was discussed by me, and it was summarily dismissed. It never happened. The district never spent any money on marketing the schools but Ms. Blaize, do you have any idea how much money the school district spends on advertising their meetings, sponsoring kiddie pages in the Rawlins Times and massive half-page ads every time they want to update school policies? And you are trying to tell me that there is zero money to market schools that will cost well over a million dollars to demolish and transport to Casper?

Where did you get the amount of $3000 a month? Did the school district supply you with these numbers or did you decide they sounded good? If someone is running the AC then someone is being negligent with taxpayers money. Its not going to cost $3000 a month for a few security lights. If they are heating water, why? So the dust bunnies can freshen up? It costs $200 to place an ad in ebay and its free to list these facilities on Craigslist.

I don't know how anybody could pack so much misleading information in one letter to the editor but the money has been allocated for demolition. It is not going to suddenly disappear because of your fears. The point is, it doesn't need to be spent. How can anybody advocate spending well over $1 million to demo the schools but zero dollars to market them beyond the exposure of the Rawlins Daily Times via ads for meetings?

I'll bid $100 for Mountain View School right now and if there was an auction that was advertised or if it was on ebay, someone would beat my bid. But, it's as if the schools were never for sale and that's how the school district is handling it. That's extreme negligence on behalf of our school board and I fervently hope that the community doesn't support incompetence as much as Traci Blaize does.

I would volunteer to market the schools as it should be done but the school district board is simply not interested in exercising their responsibilities to the taxpayer. The taxpayers are only good for one thing and that's fleecing.