A sense of urgency has overcome the community of Altamont, where parents and school officials are planning a massive campaign to garner support for the Nov. 3 countywide tax election to help pay for a new school building.

During a meeting at the school's auditorium Thursday, parents and school officials met to exchange information about the existing school's declining physical condition and to seek ways to get more support across the county for the upcoming referendum.

Committees are being formed to start a phone bank to call voters and urge their support; to get nonvoters registered before the Oct. 15 eligibility deadline; and to ask businesses to display signs reminding people about the election and what it means to the community.

The call to action in Altamont is spurred by widespread fears that most voters in the Duchesne area will oppose the $49 million proposal to build three new schools in the county, including a new $18 million building for Altamont High. Duchesne High moved into its new building in 2004.

Additionally, there is a measure of anti-tax sentiment throughout the county and a feeling that a recession is a bad time to raise taxes and embark on new building projects.

Jana Lee Goodrich, principal of Altamont Elementary School, is working to organize volunteers for get-out-the-vote efforts. She said the elementary school's enrollment has been growing fast and those students will need a better and bigger high school in the near future.

She expressed the sentiment of many at the meeting when she explained that the high school is the heart of the community.

“The thing that's so unique about Altamont is that our people are here to stay,” she said, noting that generations of families have passed through the halls of the high school.

“The whole community revolves around the school,” she said. “Our school is our community. Our community is our school.”

Her comments were a response to the question of “consolidation” – the concept of merging Altamont High students into Duchesne and Union high schools and dropping plans for a new school building.

Earlier on Thursday, an informal committee created three weeks ago by the board met to explore the potential cost savings of “consolidation,” a dirty word in the Altamont area.

The four-man committee determined that the savings the district would receive from the closure of Altamont High in operating expenses would be equally offset by the loss of Necessarily Existent Small Schools funding the district receives from the state.

The committee concluded that “the closure of Altamont High and the subsequent transfer of those students to other high schools in the district would not have a financial impact on the operating expenses of the district,” according to a letter prepared by committee member Bart Morrill, a CPA.

At the Altamont High meeting, Duchesne County School Board members Gordon Moon, Kim Harding and Doug Swasey sought to assure the crowd that the the board and the district's administrators favor construction of a new high school for Altamont.

At their Sept. 10 meeting, some board members, responding to questions from the crowd, thought it would be a good idea to appoint a committee to examine whether consolidation would save the school district in operational costs over the long run. Armed with such information, voters could make a more informed choice at the polls, they said.

Goodrich said she was glad the district is moving past the consolidation issue.

“Personally, as a mother of teenagers, the safety issue of my children getting into a vehicle and driving to Roosevelt and back all winter long just mortifies me. It's scary,” she said.

Principal John Huitt, who is in his first year at Altamont High, opened the meeting with a power-point presentation showing dilapidated conditions at the school, including crumbling ceilings, ramps that don't meet federal codes for the disabled, rusted water pipes and boilers that are continually undergoing repairs.

“It's not in good shape,” Huitt said. “The school has been remodeled several times and there are parts of it that are coming apart. Once you start remodeling this school, it's probably going to cost a lot more than to rebuild because you will have to bring everything up to code.”

The Nov. 3 referendum seeks to raise $49 million through a bond issue that would be paid off by a countywide property tax increase.

That money would be coupled with another $20 million – of which the district has already saved $8 million – for an overall $69 million construction project involving three new school buildings.

The estimated price tags are as follows: Altamont High, $18 million; Union High, $38 million; and a new Roosevelt elementary school to ease overcrowding at East Elementary, $11 million.