Could million-dollar cookies cover Rogers funding gap? City hall bake sale mocks suggestion
NEWPORT – How many cookies and cupcakes does it take to finish building a high school? Not too many, if the going price for a chocolate chip cookie is $1 million.
“There’s no greater investment than in public education and when we say dough, we don’t mean cookie dough,” event organizer Amy Machado said.
Machado and a group of friends and fellow parents set up a tongue-in-cheek bake sale in front of Newport City Hall on Wednesday evening an hour before the regular Newport City Council meeting was set to begin. Other than the million-dollar cookies, the small table featured two boxes containing four red velvet cupcakes priced at $2 million a box, or the carb-conscious and restrained could shell out $500,000 for an individual cupcake.
Machado said the bake sale-style protest was made in response to comments from Councilor David Carlin, who suggested the School Building Committee hold a bake sale to make up the remaining funding deficit to finish building the new Rogers High School Building.
One of the signs at the bake sale read “Carlin’s solution: crumbs for our kids.”
“It is ridiculous to suggest that a bake sale could cover the millions that we need, but also, children should not have bake sales to get public education funded,” Machado said.
Although the mock fundraiser made no sales, Machado said the baked goods will likely end up “in the bellies of our kids.”
Kate Jessup, an education planner who ran for City Council in 2022, also participated and held up a sign at the bake sale reading “Fund Public Ed in Newport. Budgets… Not bake sales.”
“The challenges that Newport is facing are not unique to Newport,” Jessup said. “This is happening everywhere, yet with my other clients, the communities that are developing their projects are working collaboratively. In Newport, it has been very difficult to have universal support for education and for this project.”
Carlin himself did not see the demonstration, but said he would have applauded the participants if he had. He said his “bake sale” comment was itself a criticism of the School Building Committee, which plans to fundraise for the amount of money needed to complete the school.
“Bake sales are a very appropriate way to raise money for PTOs, bake sales are not a realistic answer to a $6 million deficit on a school building project which has been irresponsibly managed,” Carlin said.
This article originally appeared on Newport Daily News: Bback sale outside Newport City Hall mocks Rogers funding comment
