The school board marked its calendar for May 8 with Tuesday night’s five-to-one vote in favor of a special election regarding a building bond to update Hammer Complex.

“I just think that right now, the timing is right,” school board chairman Ken Petersen said.

The special election ballot will ask the public to vote for or against authorizing the school board to issue a general obligation school building bond in an amount not to exceed just over $24.6 million. Of that cost, Albert Lea Area Schools Deputy Superintendent Lori Volz said just over $22.3 million will be available for construction costs.

That construction is planned to tackle changes to Hammer Complex, including creating a two-story fieldhouse, a softball complex, expanded parking and ADA-compliant seating. The bond is also intended to cover the cost of adding air conditioning to the Albert Lea High School gym, completing the swimming locker rooms and scaling Halverson Elementary School’s current gymnasium up to one that is full-size.

School board member Neal Skaar said he sees an “incredible” amount of return for the investment with these changes.

“From what I’ve been hearing, we’re not being extravagant,” Skaar said of the plan’s scope. “We’re being rather frugal. We’re not building a Taj Mahal of a stadium.”

School board member Mark Ciota said he sees the updates not as a want, but a need for the district.

“If we don’t do these things proactively, someone is going to come in and make us do it,” he said.

School board member Jill Marin voted against the resolution calling for a special election. Although she said she knows it is important to address ADA regulations and Title IX issues and is in favor of reaching out to the community for a vote, she is not in favor of the timeline. The school board should have addressed it at an earlier November election, she said.

“I feel that our lack of preparation for that does not constitute an emergency on the community’s part,” she said.

While she knows there may be costs associated with a delay in moving forward, Marin said she saw the United Way and Salvation Army campaigns unable to meet their Christmas goals as a display of the community’s expendable income. She worries it is shrinking.

Marin noted the school board is one of several bodies able to levy taxes against citizens.

“We need to be really conscious of the burden we do put on our taxpayers and when we do it, and I won’t be supporting a special election,” she said before the vote.

Marin also said she would have liked to see more options for what the future Hammer Complex could look like, so the board could make decisions about where the money would go, or how to spend less of it. According to Petersen, moving forward with one plan at this stage means that if the public chooses not to approve the bond, the district did not spend money coming up with several designs. He also noted the design has not been finalized.

Funk said the design was created in response to community feedback from the October thoughtexchange community survey and from working with both a group of planners and a group of financial experts.

Petersen and school board member Angie Hanson both agreed that a November election would have been preferred, but neither were willing to wait. Hanson said with the three polling places the school board voted to add to the pool for special elections, she feels alright about moving forward and hearing from the public what they want, stressing a need for continued education about the project.

“I do feel comfortable,” Hanson said of moving forward. “I think that we are doing the right thing.”

After the vote passed, Albert Lea Area Schools Superintendent Mike Funk said the administration will plan an outreach campaign to further educate the community about the project details. As the special election approaches, Petersen said there will be tours planned for the public to see the current facilities at Hammer Field.

According to Skaar, it was time for an all-in toward the facility updates at Hammer Complex.

“You do not jump across the crick in small increments, or you end up in the mud every time,” he said.

In other action:

• Activities Director Afton Wacholz presented the board with an overview of the state of junior high school athletics compared to offerings in fellow Big Nine Conference schools. The board discussed what collaboration between high school coaches and community members could look like for youth sports programs.

• Wacholz also updated school board members about progress regarding changes to the activity code, specifically related to chemical substance violations. After the last discussion with the board in December, Wacholz said it was apparent to all parties that a point of importance was maintaining a focus on the educational component of disciplinary action.

“I don’t feel that this is done,” Wacholz said of the policy changes. “It’s not adequate, and we want to spend more time on it.”