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Franklin Restoration Should Begin Soon

WVIK News

Five months after a fire severely damaged a school, it's time to accept bids for its restoration. This week, the Moline school board approved spending up to 4 1/2 million dollars at Franklin Elementary.

Superintendent Lanty McGuire says 2.5 million will come from the district, and the insurance company  will likely pay about 2 million dollars.

"Pretty much the building has been cleared out - there's no floors, no ceiling, and so forth. So now it's a matter of putting all that back together, and putting an air conditioning system in the building."

McGuire says an important part of the project at Franklin will be bringing it up to modern building codes - it first opened 65 years ago.

"For example, the doorways from 1952 are a whole lot smaller than what they're required to be now, so they have to widen the doorways."

He hopes restoration work at the school can begin next month, so it can re-open this summer.

This week, the Moline school board also approved borrowing 22 million dollars for Franklin and several other building projects, including air conditioning for the high school and the new auditorium. 

A native of Detroit, Herb Trix began his radio career as a country-western disc jockey in Roswell, New Mexico (“KRSY, your superkicker in the Pecos Valley”), in 1978. After a stint at an oldies station in Topeka, Kansas (imagine getting paid to play “Louie Louie” and “Great Balls of Fire”), he wormed his way into news, first in Topeka, and then in Freeport Illinois.