The school board will meet in closed executive session this Thursday to further discuss the future of the Career Resource Center property.
At an open meeting June 7 between the school board and county commissioners, some board members asked to take a step back to look at other potential uses for the property.
“I don’t think it would hurt to look at it, to think about it,” school board member Stephanie Kritzer said.
The commissioners were the only ones to bid. Their offer was $445,000 for the building at 246 E. Main St.
The school board had established a minimum price of $500,000 after getting two appraisals from Benjamin Hopkins and First Appraisal Group, but commissioner Diana Biddle said the commissioners had another appraisal done by Figg Appraisal Group and their bid was based on that.
The plan is to use the CRC building as the new prosecutor’s office. It is currently in a former Army barracks and shares a parking lot with the Brown County Courthouse.
Biddle presented the school board with a purchase agreement at the June 7 meeting. Realtor Robyn Rosenberg Bowman attended as a consultant for the county since Biddle no longer is licensed in real estate and could not get the necessary forms. Bowman owns Tramcore Realty.
The offer included an initial $50,000 down payment, which could be used immediately by the school district and would be subtracted from the purchase price.
Biddle said the county is pursuing a capital improvement loan to pay for the building along with other projects, like updating the building at 200 Hawthorne Drive for the Brown County Health Department to move there. The county bought that building, which used to house the Nashville police, in June 2020.
School board member Amy Oliver said that she was confused on how the county was going to pay for the building because she was initially under the impression the county already had the money on hand.
“It can be done either way. I have money in cum cap development fund. We have money in CEDIT fund, now called LIT. There are a couple of different funds we can draw from,” Biddle said, adding that any money used from those funds could be replenished by the loan.
“It is allocated, but we can reallocate with council’s permission.”
The commissioners would split the closing costs with the school board if an agreement was reached on the property, which Biddle estimated to be between $1,400 and $1,500.
If the school board approved the sale, the money would go into the district’s rainy day fund. The idea was to use that money to renovate the now-closed Brown County Intermediate School to serve different ages of learners.
Step back
After the May 27 meeting, Kritzer said she had received suggestions from the public for possible uses for the CRC building. She would not elaborate on those, but said at least two suggestions were student-focused and would give students more space.
Kritzer said she also felt “a little burned” by the history that had surrounded the Salt Creek Trail project, which included the school district agreeing in 2010 to allow trail developers to use part of the school-owned Eagle Park for wetland mitigation. Kritzer and board member Steve Miller Jr. were not on the board at that time; they joined in 2013. In 2012, the board and former Superintendent David Shaffer were upset about the possibility of excavating 3,000 cubic yards of dirt from the park as part of that mitigation, according to Democrat archives.
In return for using Eagle Park for wetland mitigation, a trail extension was supposed to be built to connect the Nashville schools campus with the trail.
That hasn’t happened yet.
At that time, work on the trail was being organized by the Salt Creek Trail Committee and the county had only receipted grant money for the project. That committee is no longer in existence, and the county commissioners and county highway superintendent are now in charge of the trail project.
Biddle told the school board that one of her negotiation strategies for the CRC building was to offer to have the county buy three acres east of the Brown County Law Enforcement Center to help bring the trail to the Nashville school campus.
“Who says we want to do that?” Kritzer asked.
Biddle said that was a handshake agreement made many years ago before either of them were on their boards.
“My feeling at this moment is, let’s just take a step back, mull around some ideas, we can go back to the bidding process, and take a look at that. I just don’t want to jump too soon,” Kritzer said.
Miller agreed with Kritzer. “I am not in a big hurry at this time, especially in this market,” he said.
“I do appreciate the county’s offer. I am not trying to beat up the county more. But I am looking at it from the standpoint for the school trying to get as much money as they can for the school.”
Rosenberg Bowman asked why the school board set their minimum bid higher than the average of their two appraisals.
“I don’t know anyone who has sold their house recently or property at the appraised amount. It has all been more,” Miller said.
Rosenberg Bowman said that those sales are done via cash and not a mortgage, since banks will not approve a loan for a home above the appraised value.
As a resident, Rosenberg Bowman asked if the district can afford to keep the CRC building while the board figures out what to do with it. At the last school board meeting, it was discussed that the CRC building would cost less than $3,000 a month to operate at the bare minimum.
Planning ahead
Miller also said that the district needs to consider the future of the “White House,” the district’s administration building, when thinking about selling the CRC.
Selling the CRC was part of the cost-cutting strategies the school board approved in February due to declining enrollment. Brown County Intermediate School was closed at the end of the school year and will be remade into the Educational Service Center. It will house CRC programs and a daycare/preschool program with the goal of being the spot to educate people of all ages.
Former Superintendent Laura Hammack’s 10-year vision plan included the potential move of administrative offices from the White House to the new Educational Service Center next summer.
“Let’s not go there. Do not open any other doors on anything else, only one thing at a time,” school board President Carol Bowden said.
Oliver disagreed, calling it “long-range planning.”
“We know very soon, within maybe a year or so, we’re going to be talking about another building. … We’re looking at this sale as if it’s done in isolation.” Oliver said that there are other moves “that are outside of the box that we haven’t considered yet.”
Bowden said that using the CRC for more space for students is not needed, as the district continues to see enrollment decline.
In 2007, the school district paid $200,000 for the CRC, and since then had put in $120,000 to fix it up. Now, the district is being offered $445,000 for it, which she characterized as a pretty good deal. “I know my personal property (value) didn’t jump that much,” Bowden said.
Kritzer expressed concerns about the prosecutor’s office being adjacent the school campus. “I know you have some interesting characters that come in and out of the prosecutor’s office. Do we want them that close to the schools?” she asked.
Bowden said she had the same concerns when the sheriff’s office and jail were built across State Road 46 from the former Nashville Elementary School. “That was a big issue then. I was at the meeting. I spoke up. They had a plan and they came up with a plan to deal with walkaways,” she said.
Biddle said if the school board does not want to move forward with the purchase she has two other options to deal with the space and environmental issues at the prosecutor’s office, “which may not be as economical as this.”
“I can see the prosecutor’s office staying at that location for a very, very long time. We would have to rethink our facilities if we had to wait too long just because we’ll have the funding to do something,” Biddle said. “… I can get the loan without the CRC building. But to give the county council a plan, they want a little bit more specific numbers.”
Negotiating property sales in public meetings is not ideal, and Biddle said that if the commissioners were the ones selling this property, they would have all real estate discussions in executive session. But interim Superintendent Jim Halik said he checked with the school district’s legal counsel and that these discussions had to be public per state law.
He said the school board could go back to closed executive sessions to talk about a plan on how to handle the CRC property. The goal will be for the board to have a decision made by the June 17 school board meeting.
“We’re just in a fact-finding mode at this moment. We’re very seriously considering your offer,” Oliver said.
“Don’t misunderstand us, it is a good offer, it is, money-wise and time-wise. It meets all of that criteria.”
Oliver said the reason the board has public hearings is to take input from the public to make sure the board is making the right decision.
“We didn’t get any offers and and yours was the only one, so we’re considering that offer,” Oliver said. “I don’t know if we’re at the point of putting pen on paper yet.”
