District Response to Social Media Post

February 16th, 2022 /
Provo City School District /
News, PCSD School Board, Public Relations, Updates/Announcements

In regards to David Harding’s social media post.

Mr. Harding is a well respected member of the community. We appreciate his passion in the school district and hope every member has the same passion for making Provo City School District the best district in the state.

Mr. Harding and the SaveDixon group have asserted the District is not following the law. This claim is not grounded in fact, but his opinion. The District has followed every step of the law as outlined in Utah state code 17D regarding limited purpose entities with chapter 2 specific to Municipal Building Authorities. Any assertion that we have not followed the law and should follow a different law under 20A Election Code is not based on a legal standing but on one’s opinion. The law governing Municipal Building Authorities is not an old obscure law, Districts across the state use this section of law regularly. Regardless of which law was followed, the actual timing to gather signatures started on September 18th, and a good faith effort was not even done as not a single signature was turned in during the past five months. Mr. Harding asserts that the District did not provide referendum petitions and communicate with the SaveDixon group. This also is not factual. Our Business Administrator provided Eric Chase and Shannon Bingham the form on September 30th 2021. This email can be verified by a GRAMA request. Our Board President and Business Administrator also had a personal meeting on September 28th 2021 with Mr. Harding and Eric Chase where the Business Administrator and Board President explained the process to gather the required signatures.

After that initial conversation between Sept. 28th and Oct. 1st, the Save Dixon group has not directly communicated with or provided the necessary signatures to the district until we were notified of the open letter two days ago. In that communication Mr. Harding asserted the District has acted with mal intent in this process and that we have not communicated with the Save Dixon Group, which is not factual.

We encourage any further discussion on this matter be sent directly to our attorney. We hope that the Save Dixon community will work with us to develop the Dixon site once the new school is built.