To the editor:

Let me try again. All I asked is that the new Blakely and High School structures are built to last longer than 50 years.

For $81 million, one should expect some longevity. Sure, schools get a lot of wear and tear, but so did the Pantheon and that survived wars, invasions and tourists for 1,800 years.

But, maybe that is not a good example. A better one would be my old elementary school, built around 1250 as Holy Ghost Hospital. In 1850, once the 1848 revolution lost its steam, and Romanticism and Volksgeist and nationalism swept Europe, it became Holy Ghost Elementary School.

A two-story brick-and-timber structure (concrete was unknown during the High Middle Ages) with its own Gothic spiral. A public school on Holy Ghost Street. That’s where I learned how to read and write using slate tablets and chalk in 1945.

While the elementary school was 750 years old, our house, right around the corner from the school, was nearly brand new, built right after the 30 Years War in 1650. My high school building was even newer, constructed around 1850.

They are all still in use as schools today. Would it be asking too much to use our property taxes responsibly, to hire architects and builders who can show the 1250 builders that we too can built to last?

JAMES BEHREND

Bainbridge Island