2008 Woodie Awards
Voters give their 20 cents worth
Tanya Redinbaugh and Aaron Hepker
Issue date: 9/15/05 Section: Feature
Voters in Kirkwood Community College's service area approved the passage of $25 million in bonds to be used for new construction and improvements to existing Kirkwood facilities on Tuesday.
A super-majority of 60 percent was needed.
Of the seven county region, Johnson and Cedar County had the highest percentage of yes votes with 75 and 69 percent respectively. In Linn County 4,484 "yes" votes were counted compared to 2,667 "no" votes. No county dropped below the threshold of 60 percent. There were 10,405 total local citizens who cast a "yes" vote and 5,414 who voted "no," for a total of 15,819 votes.
This led to a 65.775 percent majority in favor of the proposed bond issue.
"Since it passed in all seven counties, it speaks very highly of the job that Kirkwood does in all 13 of our sites," said Kirkwood President Dr. Mick Starcevich.
Director of Special Projects for Kirkwood, Kristie Fisher, said the money will be used for improvements on all of Kirkwood's campuses. "It's going to be able to improve parking."
Consideration has been undertaken to add additional parking to the east side of Benton and Cedar halls. Fisher said the money would also be used to increase the number of existing classrooms and laboratories.
Other plans call for the construction of an $11 million facility that could add 87,000 square feet to Linn Hall, or the facility could be a stand alone building between Linn and Kirkwood halls.
With student enrollment continuing to increase each semester, school officials began looking at ways to improve existing facilities while preparing for the future enrollment.
With a projected enrollment of 20,000 students in 2010, it was clear the additional space would be needed at all of Kirkwood's campuses.
A construction schedule is not currently available but administrators said they hope that the construction will wrap up in 2008.
"We're starting work on it today...starting to talk about each phase of the project," said Starcevich.
A super-majority of 60 percent was needed.
Of the seven county region, Johnson and Cedar County had the highest percentage of yes votes with 75 and 69 percent respectively. In Linn County 4,484 "yes" votes were counted compared to 2,667 "no" votes. No county dropped below the threshold of 60 percent. There were 10,405 total local citizens who cast a "yes" vote and 5,414 who voted "no," for a total of 15,819 votes.
This led to a 65.775 percent majority in favor of the proposed bond issue.
"Since it passed in all seven counties, it speaks very highly of the job that Kirkwood does in all 13 of our sites," said Kirkwood President Dr. Mick Starcevich.
Director of Special Projects for Kirkwood, Kristie Fisher, said the money will be used for improvements on all of Kirkwood's campuses. "It's going to be able to improve parking."
Consideration has been undertaken to add additional parking to the east side of Benton and Cedar halls. Fisher said the money would also be used to increase the number of existing classrooms and laboratories.
Other plans call for the construction of an $11 million facility that could add 87,000 square feet to Linn Hall, or the facility could be a stand alone building between Linn and Kirkwood halls.
With student enrollment continuing to increase each semester, school officials began looking at ways to improve existing facilities while preparing for the future enrollment.
With a projected enrollment of 20,000 students in 2010, it was clear the additional space would be needed at all of Kirkwood's campuses.
A construction schedule is not currently available but administrators said they hope that the construction will wrap up in 2008.
"We're starting work on it today...starting to talk about each phase of the project," said Starcevich.