Looking around Kendallville the past couple of weeks, signs have been popping up with big red letters spelling either “YES” or “NO.” Many of the signs with “NO” plastered on them have a picture of a bomb exploding right next to the word. What are these signs for anyways? These signs represent a major debate for the last 2 years around the East Noble community has been deciding on the fate of the East Noble Middle School building.

In the recent election on Tuesday, November 4, the public was able to vote on whether or not East Noble should invest into building a new middle school. Along with building a new middle school, cost will be added into the budget to do maintenance on East Noble High School, but will be minimal in cost compared to the middle school project. A total of 4,817 people voiced their opinion, and the people of the community voted ‘No’ to building a new middle school by a percentage of 51.01% against to 48.99% in agreement. The difference in votes was 97 votes, which is extremely close. So, since the majority of people voted against the construction, does that mean that there won’t be a new middle school? No. This means that in order to be voted ‘Yes,’ the logistics for the project will need to be revamped in order to be more economical.

As of now, the total expected budget for the project is $37.88 million. With this proposal, a new middle school will be built that is one-story and can include 6^th grade again, so 6^th graders will be moved back to the middle school. Other costs will be renovations to the high school that include new boilers, chillers and a new roof. The rest of the cost will be interest on the loans.

There are two possible destinations for the school to be built in the proposal. One location is on the west side of SR 3 and just south of the SR 3 and Main St. intersection in Kendallville, and the other is also on the west side of SR 3 and on the northwest side of the SR 3 and Main St. intersection in Kendallville. Since a high pressure gas pipe runs through the middle of one of the properties, many people who are against the building of a new school fear that there is a danger posed to the students and staff if the pipe happens to malfunction, hence the bombs exploding on the campaign signs. The people who disagree with building a new middle school don’t like the proposed location of the new building, which is why they are opposed to it.

Advocates of the plan boast that the school’s location will be open and have ease-of-access in order to limit congestion at the beginning and end of the school day when everyone is leaving. They also show that the conditions that the students are subjected to during the day will be far better than what they are now, seeing as the school will have central air and will be up-to-date in the infrastructure.

This debate, right now leaning towards not building a new school, will continue to go on until there is a concrete conclusion. Just because it was voted ‘No’ this time doesn’t mean that there will not be another vote.

Other elections happening in the East Noble School Corporation on Tuesday were 4 school board member elections. Brent Durbin was elected in the Allen Township election, winning 38.83% of the votes, while Carol Schellenberg was a close 2^nd at 32.37% of the votes. Barbara Babcock edged out Thomas Foster by just under 3% of the votes in Kendallville. David Desper ran unopposed in the Wayne Township elections.

On Tuesday, many very important decisions regarding the East Noble School Corporation were made. Between the construction of the new middle school being put off and the election of 4 East Noble board member positions, November 4 was a very important day.