Brian Smith doesn’t feel the Bowling Green City Schools Board of Education is going in the right
direction.
And he wants to fix that.
That is why he is competing with seven other candidates for three open seats on the board in the Nov. 5
election.
“Buildings are being neglected and I’d like to see that changed,” Smith said.
He also in not happy with the plan on the Nov. 5 ballot. Voters will be asked to fund one consolidated
elementary school with a 1.6-mill property tax that will collect $20 million, and a 0.25% traditional
income tax that also will collect $20 million.
Smith said that he is a “hard no” on the one consolidated elementary.
“I don’t think it addresses anything. We’re just putting all the students in one spot. We’re spending $40
million and I don’t think we’ve solved a thing. Except air conditioning. We can air condition for less
than $40 million.”
He was on the facilities task force.
“What they’re presenting to the public is different that what we voted on,” Smith said.
He would prefer keeping the elementaries where they are, either through an overhaul of existing buildings
or new construction.
“The buildings need attention; they don’t need to be demolished.”
He also has issue with how the school board diverted permanent improvement money for construction of the
middle school addition instead of using that money to maintain existing facilities.
The project cost approximately $4.5 million at no additional cost to taxpayers.
“Permanent improvement is for maintaining buildings. If you wanted to expand, go to the taxpayers for a
levy. They used funding that could have been used to repair the heating system and add air conditioning
to the two elementaries that don’t have it. Instead they have neglected those (schools).”
Those fixes would have helped with the learning environment which “seems to be the biggest complaint from
the teachers.”
Despite the need for new elementaries, Smith sees state tests as a bigger challenge.
“There is funding tied to those numbers. Right or wrong, every district is graded on the same metric. As
of right now, we have to comply with that.”
As a small business owner, Smith has designed, built and installed small and large machining tool
projects relating to assembly lines and industrial equipment. He owns Huss Equipment in Bowling Green
and has experience making payroll and staying within budget.
“I could certainly help in going out for bids to repair things that have been neglected,” he said.
Smith is a 1985 graduate of Bowling Green High School and had two daughters graduate, in 2012 and 2014.
He attended Kenwood and Conneaut elementaries and toured both as part of the facilities task force. Both
have had additions since he attended, and he noted the change in technology.
Smith did say when he was an elementary student, he spent some time in the hallways in small groups.
While he sees the maintenance of buildings not being addressed, “the distribution of students is an
issue,” he said. “We’ve got overcrowding in one elementary and undercrowding in another.”
And that may require redistricting.
“I’m not opposed to looking at it.”
