Oral History Program Don Eric Belnap Interviewed by Joe Jay 28 April 2008 i Oral History Program Weber State University Stewart Library Ogden, Utah Don Eric Belnap Interviewed by Joe Jay 28 April 2008 Copyright © 2012 by Weber State University, Stewart Library ii Mission Statement The Oral History Program of the Stewart Library was created to preserve the institutional history of Weber State University and the Davis, Ogden and Weber County communities. By conducting carefully researched, recorded, and transcribed interviews, the Oral History Program creates archival oral histories intended for the widest possible use. Interviews are conducted with the goal of eliciting from each participant a full and accurate account of events. The interviews are transcribed, edited for accuracy and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewees (as available), who are encouraged to augment or correct their spoken words. The reviewed and corrected transcripts are indexed, printed, and bound with photographs and illustrative materials as available. Archival copies are placed in University Archives. The Stewart Library also houses the original recording so researchers can gain a sense of the interviewee's voice and intonations. Project Description The Weber State College/University Student Projects have been created by students working with several different professors on the Weber State campus. The topics are varied and based on the student's interest or task for a specific assignment. These oral history assignments were created to help Weber State students learn the value and importance of recording public history and to benefit the expansion of the Weber State oral history collections. ____________________________________ Oral history is a method of collecting historical information through recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account. It reflects personal opinion offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ____________________________________ Rights Management All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the Stewart Library of Weber State University. No part of the manuscript may be published without the written permission of the University Librarian. Requests for permission to publish should be addressed to the Administration Office, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah, 84408. The request should include identification of the specific item and identification of the user. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Belnap, Don Eric, an oral history by Joe Jay, 28 April 2008, WSU Stewart Library Oral History Program, University Archives, Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, UT. iii Abstract: The following is an oral history interview with Don Eric Belnap. The interview was conducted on April 28, 2008, by Joe Jay, at Belnap’s office in Ogden, Utah. Belnap discusses his recollections and experiences of growing up in Weber County, Utah, and his time spent thus far as the President of the Ogden City School Board. JJ: This is Joe Jay and I'm here with Don Eric Belnap at his business office. 1694 Mohawk Lane in Ogden and this is his oral interview. I'm going to start off with asking; who are your parents? DB: Donald Eugene Belnap and uh Sharron Anderson Belnap. JJ: And where were you born? DB: I was born in Bakersfield California. JJ: OK. When did you move to Utah? DB: My parents were originally born and raised in Ogden they left to go to California after my grandmother passed away, my mother was expecting me so I got down there just in time to be born. Lived there until I was almost twelve and then came back to Ogden in 1970. JJ: So she was expecting you in Utah and had you in California? DB: Correct. JJ: And how long were you in California. 1 DB: Almost 12 years. JJ: 12 years. DB: Yes just under. JJ: So your childhood was there your adolescence was here in Utah? DB: Correct I moved back just before the beginning of my sixth grade school year. JJ: Where was your middle school? DB: I went to Mount Ogden Junior High School. JJ: Where was that? DB: Right here in Ogden. JJ: And you went to Ogden High? DB: Yes. JJ: And what was that like? DB: Great. JJ: How so? DB: I had friends of different cultures different races. Socially and economically. I think a better synopsis of what the world was like rather than being all Caucasian or something along those lines. Being able to associate play with people on teams of different races. JJ: When you went to high school at Ogden High What were the boundaries of the school at those times. 2 DB: I'm not really positive but I think it was probably the 20 I want to say somewhere around 20th street in Ogden I think it was kind of an east west but I'm not positive exactly but I do know that there were some that I'm guessing 20th street close to the canyon. JJ: Is that is pretty large compared to now. DB: No, actually it's pretty similar to what is only been some minor adjustments. JJ: And the building, what was the building like where you were there? DB: The building at that point in time was about 40 almost 40 years old. Original chalkboard black slate, same desks, they today still have same chalkboard same desk. JJ: There are still original chalkboards? DB: Oh yeah there's still chalkboard they have brought in some smart board type technology for some classes but yeah still the same building and it's just 70 years old. JJ: And how old are you now? DB: 49. JJ: 49, almost there. DB: Yeah, 49, getting close to that big 50 by the end of the year. JJ: Isn't that when the clock stops? DB: My clock is, I think, winding down even as we speak. (Chuckling) I hope I make it through this interview. JJ: Now what is your profession now? What do you do? 3 DB: I work in the financial services industry. JJ: Financial Services? DB: I work with people and their life insurance planning their estate planning their retirement planning. JJ: And you went to Weber state Correct? DB: I did. JJ: It was Weber College then? DB: It was. JJ: What year did you graduate? DB: 1984. JJ: And what was your degree in? DB: I was a history major and a management Minor. I was contemplating going to law school at the time and that's the reason why I majored in history. JJ: Why did you stop 'contemplating'? DB: I had just gotten married and had a few children and just didn't think I could be a dad and a husband and go away to law school at the same time. JJ: Ok. So and you've stayed in Ogden since? DB: Correct. JJ: So you really haven't moved around much as compared to other people? 4 DB: No. JJ: Now you're on the Ogden City School Board? DB: Correct. Ogden City School District/School board JJ: And how long have you been in this position? DB: Three years and four months to the day. JJ: How did this come about? DB: Anybody that knew me in High School is probably thinking this is a walking example of an oxymoron that Don Belnap is the president of the Ogden City School board. JJ: You're the president? DB: Yes. That's kind of like that the song on Sesame Street comes to mind something here just doesn't belong. You want to hear that song. Some could very well look at that song and say that's you. However I do believe that one of the advantages or one of the character strengths if you will from majoring in history at Weber state has been very helpful as far as my education pursuits since college and thinking of the significance of country, community, state and getting involved that way. So having my wife and I are the parents of 7 children I had approximately 4 years ago still had four of five kids in the system felt like things needed to be done, our community had just gone through the process of trying to pass a large 155 million dollar bond for building new schools replacing old ones we got we as in the committee the district got shot down by the community by a 69 to 31 percent no way are we going to allow you to have bond money 5 every precinct in the community voted against it. Um and I don't think it was even that close, so it brought to the forefront some of the problems the district was having. Um and having been involved with that process I had a friend of mine who was a school board member who wasn't going to run again and I helped him get elected and I thought great well if you're not going to run I'll put my name in and see how it goes I put my name in 4 years ago and nobody else did file to run and I feel like I bid 10 bucks for the pink flamingos and nobody else bid 11. So I was here and got in and soon found that uh there education is public education is one of those fields that everyone has an opinion like politics or religion. Education is the same way um. What someone may think is right someone may think is crazy. But in reality there is not a lot of right or wrongs just how things seem to work out so I got on knowing that places like Ogden High School was 70 years old and looked like a 70 year old building and is a wonderful historic structure as it is we needed to do something to bring our school buildings up into the 21st century. The average age of our buildings was 50 years old and it was somewhat aggravating to look and say why wasn't there a plan in place to um take care of that nobody wanted to seem to address that nobody had addressed it was a hard decision Got involved that way got elected. Found myself in a position in Ogden city that there was a law Ogden city school district there was a law at the state legislature that said that if your school district had more than 10,000 students you had to have a 7 member board. And prior to my running there was only a five member board so we in that election of 2004 um we needed to raise it to seven I came a different area we had two existing board members in the same district after they realigned it and so for two years we had an eight member 6 board and that's the only time in history of the state there has been an eight member board and that provided its own set of challenges, you had to have 5 members to get a majority. JJ: Did you split even a lot on votes? DB: Oh we did even from the first moment there was one existing lady who had been a board member for two years who was the president who was a nice little old lady but in my opinion who wouldn't tackle the issues that we needed to do as far as building as far as our grade configuration some of the other challenges our fiscal budget so from day one I decided to run to be president we had 4 votes for her 4 for me and voted twice and came 4-4 and we flipped a coin. And I became board president. JJ: You literally became president by flipping a coin? DB: By flipping a coin. JJ: What coin was it? DB: It was a dollar bill that uh the person who ran for vice president also ran against the same lady who was the prior president wanted to be the vice president and it was 4-4 so I flipped the coin again and she lost a second time so that person took that dollar bill and cut it in half and made a plaque and it has my name on it and his name on it. The lucky one dollar coin in retrospect as soon as that coin toss took place and I won I became nauseated and I almost threw up on the spot. JJ: Really? 7 DB: Thinking what have I gotten myself into. In other neighboring districts I had heard people say that they had been on boards for 4 6 8 10 years before they took leadership and I think I was on for 4 5 minutes before and we had to go through the process of selecting a new superintendent that's a lot of issues with an 8 member board that made it rather challenging but I feel like we've made some we had to close some schools we consolidated some buildings we had to do boundary adjustments we did grade reconfigurations we took part in changing site base management. And several other things that uh in the last three years in my opinion should have been done in previous years. But for whatever reasons school boards chose not to deal with some tough decisions at Ogden city schools. We were going through a declining enrollment we had some schools that had 280 kids in it. Other schools of 329 in it and we decided to close two schools and build a new one and put them together and fiscally that makes a lot of sense. But we've had some incredible challenges that we're still going through that really are rather uh rather taxing as far as I can't go anywhere I kid you not at grocery store a kids soccer game uh to church to wherever without having somebody come up and say why you know why are we doing this why are we doing that do you know about this person or that person or its amazing JJ: How do people recognize like I read the standard examiner and your picture isn't that predominant how do people recognize you like is it by name or is it by just see you. DB: The area that you represent is in Ogden city. Ogden City is only 11 miles long and three or four miles wide I believe well several miles anyway but it’s not a real big geographical 8 area so the little area I'm in is pretty much a neighborhood so people know the neighborhood they know you I've been in Ogden a long time and JJ: And you had ecclesiastical leadership before? DB: Correct so people knew me on Sundays as well as being in the neighborhood. My wife and I we first got married didn't live very far away from where we live now so there's still people in that particular area that knew me and I think that's one of the reasons why people, no one ran against me because once I put my name in they thought oh well I don't want to go against Don or he'll do a good job so there's no need to have anybody upset there was no representative from the OEA or some other association that thought I was a bad person and try to find a candidate so uh JJ: When you first decided to run how much did you know about... I mean I know you say you had five kids in the system but how much did you know about the dynamics and politics of education? DB: Other than going to parent teacher conference and uh that was about it I actually part of the I think at the same time the state came out Utah state and said school boards needed to be seven members if you were over a certain number They also created community councils so every school in the state of Utah Public education has to have a community council And it has to be made up of an equal number of employees and parents. And their primary function is to keep track of trust land funds So the state of Utah has an enormous, billions of dollars in state owned lands that any money that comes off of that if your mineral rights or grazing fees or whatever any money that 9 comes in from that goes into a trust land fund and based upon the number of students that school has they're allocated dollar amounts every year. JJ: Per pupil? DB: Per pupil per school and the community council must create a plan, an educational plan on how to spend those dollars. So they get together there's rules they have to follow there's guidelines there's laws and so they create an educational plan. They vote on it and they send it to the school board. The school Board reviews those plans and says this is good or we think you're kind of light in setting aside refreshments for meetings is not necessarily a good use of funds go back and see if there's something you can do to be for the benefit of kids. And I think that came down the same time so I actually got involved with Ogden high schools community council as a member and uh was at that point in time was a we went through a process of selecting a new principal just showing up at meetings having a roll there and that kind of got me started in the process and that was probably 67 years ago. Found myself going from being a someone standing on the sideline not knowing what's going on to where I find myself today thinking what's going on (chuckling) in a totally different manner. So that's kind of how I got started and involved with that. It’s amazing there's so much to learn. You could be doing this fulltime and there is a fee or a stipend it's about three hundred dollars a month that a school board member gets. I figure it's about 50 cents an hour as far as how much time in a month. JJ: What you're actually putting into it? 10 DB: What you're actually putting in, yeah. So there are some that say hey that's better than nothing I'm not campaigning it could be volunteered service but I think if people understood how much time is involved nobody would ever consider running for these things. JJ: They basically pay you for a coke for an hour while you read. DB: Yeah while you read and study and visit schools. JJ: So far, you have been in three and a half years? DB: Three years four months but who's counting April 30th. JJ: April 30th. Laughter What so far has been the most significant like if you were to leave today if today was the end what's the most significant thing you can look back today and say I was part of that? DB: I don't know if there's a proudest. I think having to take 8 people for 2 years as diverse as you can find. People outside of school People retired from being a school district employee um two people whose spouses are teachers in the district. Dealing with a business person two people who work at Hill Air Force Base a mother and bringing that kind of a background together to have everybody focus on specific needs has been challenging and rewarding at the same time to be able to overcome some of the dynamics of the group and getting the group headed in the right direction. Not that you should focus a great deal on dollars but unfortunately education is always based on dollars Every year the state legislature gets together and determines how much money they're going to give for schools and you have to take those dollars and try to make 11 them work the best that you can you have a declining enrollment where your dollars are based upon the numbers of students that you have and plan accordingly I think that's an issue so financially that's easier to put your hand on and say yeah I can see that there's been some success there. Having closed one middle school and three elementary schools and so far a have built one brand new elementary school and another one that will open up in the fall of this year and then another one the year after that and hopefully a new elementary school the following year we've come in and made major upgrades to our middle schools because we voted to change our grade configuration from a k-5 elementary school to a 6-8 middle school to a 9-12 high school to the fall of 08 we're moving to a k-6 elementary 7-9 junior high and a 10-12 high school which is what most of Utah is. So people coming into Ogden, Ogden city schools most of them I've saw over the years people in my neighborhood could not relate to a six grader middle school and a ninth grader in high school. And so they wouldn't stay in Ogden. They would move to Davis County and Weber County and go to those schools so being uniform with the majority of the state was a big issue that's been a concern. Like I mentioned the closing of schools, we have circled the wagons financially to the point of a 22 veteran who is our business administrator in this district who said our district is in better financial shape today than it has been in the time he's been in. So financially we're better off we've passed a bond a 97.3 million dollar bond 95.3 million dollar bond here in 2006 so were starting to do work and we're starting to make improvements capitally to our buildings to provide better. Middle schools will now be junior highs. We'll be putting in new science labs, new tech education rooms so that there are new cafeteria common 12 areas that are in all three of those buildings A Major renovation of Ben Lomond High School is taking place now A major plus million dollars 43-44 million Ogden high school is going through some major renovations with a new cafeteria commons a new gymnasium. We're also in the process of trying to raise money in the private sector to restore the auditorium Take the old gym and turn it into a performing arts and science lab JJ: At which school? DB: At Ogden, but we are having to raise more money for that because it's an historical building. JJ: In relation to that how much have you seen plans for that? DB: Yes, that's moving forward. JJ: Ok. DB: The new gymnasium. It's costing approximately a third more money to restore the building instead of just tearing the building down and building a new high school there JJ: Which would you prefer? Do you want a new High school or do you want to keep Ogden high? DB: Me personally-keep Ogden high. The Community is Keep Ogden high The phrase political suicide would come in if not literal death threat (chuckles) if that were to come out there is no way that this city would ever in my opinion pass a bond that says we're 13 going to tear down Ogden high and build a new high school. It never would have got passed. There are people all over this city that would. JJ: The state. DB: The state as well but the people who vote for it look at it as an icon an historical icon to be preserved. It's an incredible building but it's a 70 year old school that has had thousands of kids every day six days a week going through that building since 1938. And it looks like it. It's worn out to restore that we were told you'd need to get as much of the foot traffic out of the building as possible. The new gym for athletics and a new cafeteria commons that will allow that so eventually we'll go through a restoration process of that school which will that's going to take 10 to12 years I just hope we don't have an earthquake anytime soon because I think if we do we would lose that structure. JJ: Is a part of the 12 year plan stabilization? DB: Yeah, we'll do it in phases uh this morning I met with a group that s in the process of trying to raise some money by going through graduating classes and raising money to try and help with the cost of restoring the auditorium which is a beautiful arid incredible auditorium they don't make them like that anywhere its you've never been there there've been movie s made there have been I don't have names of some of the most wellrenowned singers and performers of past that have come and performed on that stage. It’s incredible. Every year the Utah Shakespearean Festival comes up and does a performance there. It’s just a beautiful place however its several million dollars to restore that building several pushing close to ten and a lot of that is a earthquake, 14 seismic prevention or upgrades that would help that so we're in a process of doing those things and that's all uh hopefully going to be with private dollars to take care of that and public dollars will restore and remodel the old gymnasium. Private dollars will take care of the auditorium and new windows 600 plus windows in that building We're hoping to raise money to do those things from the private sector uh we had to do that there is we've done a great job in our community for 50 plus years of building a north south rivalry between Ogden and Ben Lomond and there are people that uh were in Ben Lomond in the Ben Lomond area that were upset that they were that they were only getting 40 million for their school and Ogden high was going to be 60 million for theirs because of the restoration costs. All they see is 20 million dollars. I understand that. So we've lowered the expectation down for public dollars and raised the expectation for private dollars so as not to lose the historical icon that Ogden high school is. It's also on a small piece of ground 20 acres. New high schools in the state of Utah today they recommend 50 acres Ben Lomond is on 30 acres which presents its own unique challenges. JJ: What's Syracuse High? DB: 50 acres. JJ: They are 50? DB: Yeah. JJ: Ok. 15 DB: You know I sort of mentioned financially there's some issues there you can say we're better off as a school our grade configuration uh we found out that by doing those changes of going from a k 6 elementary school we stopped a seven year decline in enrollment and last year we had 300 more kids or this school year 07 08 more than last year. JJ: What's your graduation percentile? DB: There's 12 different ways to determine what a graduation rate is comparison to number of students. I don't know you could have a 9th grader start. JJ: When you hear on the news that Detroit as like a 55 percent or a 60 percent how do they determine that and what would it be for Ogden? DB: Forgive me for stuttering but there's a dozen different ways to calculate graduation slash dropout rate for those who start school and for those who graduate. You many have some kids who start in ninth grade and don't finish there twelfth grade and some people say that's a dropout rate that's not very good. Well, no, you don't know if somebody's moved if they've decided to go to a neighboring school district or if they've gone to an alternative high school but my guess is we're probably in the 80 between the two schools in the mid-eighties. As far as the graduation rate. I think Ogden high is a little higher but on the average it’s about 80 to 85 percent. JJ: Is that pretty consistent? DB: It appears to be pretty consistent we through the state office of education have raised graduation requirements they require for example three years of math as a district we 16 chose to raise it to four years of math to graduate from high school So we're doing some things that I think are making our students who do graduate better we've enhanced our concurrent enrollment and precollege classes in our two high schools so kids if they want to can still stay in high school and still get college credit for a mere ten dollars per credit. We've done some things like that. We actually have had students in the last few years who have graduated with their associate degree at Weber state and then will graduate the next week from high school. JJ: That would have been nice. DB: Yes it would so educationally we're trying to do some things that are better it's just harder to say things are doing better and point your finger here because it’s just tougher. We've increased our marketing efforts as far as what goes on with our schools. Our community awareness when we went out and passed our bond we literally did a flip flop from 69 percent against the bond to 67 percent for our bond in two years. JJ: In two years? DB: Yes, less than two years. JJ: So do you think that when the first bond failed it was their perception of the public that the school board is not managing this right? DB: Yes not only school board but the district and it was too much money. And it was all based upon the public paying for it based on an increase in taxes. We got together and said it was less money and then we determined that we looked at internal financing and then said ok school district you're going to pay for I think it was 49 percent of the new 17 bond money in the mid-forties and the public was going to pay for the rest of it through increased property taxes. So instead of being a 230 dollar increase in property taxes on a 100 thousand dollar home it was a 75 dollar increase. And then we came out and said not every school needs to be redone we'll only do a few schools we'll change our grade configuration and we did everything we needed to do and told that to the public and they liked it and for the most part that's been our goal as a board is to keep those promises we've made. JJ: It's been open for 4 days have you been on frontrunner yet? DB: I have not. I missed it. JJ: You missed the train? DB: Well I'm looking forward to when it goes to the airport because I can see myself on those times of not having to worry about parking a car or getting dropped off. I haven't done a great deal of traveling but I have been on the BART system down in the San Francisco bay area and everybody rides that you could be homeless or a top level executive there everybody is riding that system. Hopefully that will get to that point here. JJ: Ok, thank you. DB: That's it? JJ: That's it. 18