Dear editor,
Saturday’s Register reported on the meeting concerning funding for the Bowlus Center. After noting that the failed bond issue of 2014 included provision for removing music classes from the Bowlus Center and replacing them with career and technical classes, your report included the following paragraph:
“That plan was criticized by a local attorney, who threatened he would take the school district to court,” said Koehn, referring to Iola attorney Clyde Toland.
The allegation that I threatened to take the school district to court is false. At no time have I threatened to take the district to court.
At the time of the 2014 bond election campaign what I did do was write an open letter to the editor, which was published in the Register on Sept. 23, 2014. Check it out online in the Register archives.
In this letter I pointed out that removal of the fine arts classes and replacing them with career and technical classes could possibly result in forfeiture of the Bowlus Center pursuant to the terms of Tom Bowlus’ will. Because of this possibility of losing the Bowlus Center, I urged that voters vote “no” on the bond issue.
Whether there would be a forfeiture of the Bowlus Center would be judicially determined only after the election, if the bond issue had passed and its terms were implemented. Without knowing how the District Court of Allen County, Kansas, would ultimately rule on this issue, I was unwilling to gamble and vote for a bond issue that, if passed, could result in the forfeiture of the Bowlus, if the court ruled that way in interpreting the will.
Those of you here at the time of the election campaign will recall that the school board did not include any information about the possibility of the forfeiture of the Bowlus in any of its information about the bond issue. I believed that the voters of the district were entitled to know all of the facts in deciding whether to vote for or against the bond issue. Since no one, including the school board and the Register, was disclosing this vital information to the public, I wrote my letter. Some who did not appreciate my furnishing this information to the public accused me of “fear mongering.”
Now, two years later, in the Register’s report of last week’s meeting appears the following:
“School superintendent Koehn said the district needs a better understanding of the consequences if it makes certain changes on how it uses the facility.”
Exactly my point two years ago. Nice to have the school board up to speed, but I do not appreciate the false portrayal of what I did in 2014.
Clyde Toland,
Iola, Kan.
