February 2001 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

595 596 FRED STUMP: I was not here when decisions were made regarding those -- 597 - buildings. The intent of the school corporation is to utilize the space for student needs. 598 The belief is that by turning it into green space for fields and playgrounds would be in the 599 best interest of the students and neighborhood, also the School Corporation would like to 600 retain the property for potential future development. We do not want to give up the 601 property, however, the building is of no use to us. Our board president, Mr. Sheehan, is 602 also present to speak to the board. 603 604 RICHARD SHEEHAN: I am the School Board President. I sent a letter by fax, 605 which I do not believe you received so I have copies for everyone. When the School 606 Board made the initial decision to build a new school money was set-aside in the budget 607 to demolish the old school, so there are no surprises. At the last board meeting the 608 superintendent presented a request and rational for demolishing the building. I had talked 609 to her earlier in the day to see if it was possible to table the issue until the next meeting 610 when the developers could have the opportunity to address the board. The 611 Superintendent raised this issue at the board meeting, however, after hearing from various 612 individuals the board decided that it would be best to act that night then postpone it. In 613 terms of my personal decision to demolish old Nuner were made based on the fact that 614 none of the proposals offered even the value of the land on which the building is based. 615 To ask the School Board to hand over to a developer a city block for not even the value 616 of the land, to me, is not a serious offer and I as a board member I would be failing by 617 fiduciary responsibilities to the corporation and students to simply hand property over to 618 a developer with out getting appropriate compensation. The Corporation has recreational 619 use ideas for the land. One other thing, Mr. Oxian said that both Dr. Raymond and 620 myself were informed of the action. The letter in question was dated January 9, 2001 621 states that interim protection has been placed on this date. I am very disconcerted by this 622 statement because it suggests that an action has already been taken by this board to place 623 interim protection on this property when, as far as I know the Commission has not met 624 regarding this matter. I was told that the letter was sent in error, well if it was sent in 625 error then I would have hoped also that I would have gotten notice that it had been sent in 626 error. 1% 628 TOM BRADEMAS: Mr. Sheehan talked about appropriate compensation, this is 629 a public building. What we are talking about is early childhood care and training which 630 can increase grades by 50%. What I am talking about is a foundation for South Bend 631 children to do much better in school and score a lot higher on the ISTEP tests. The 632 request for compensation is what is going to keep these ISTEP test scores low. 633 634 THOMAS BODNAR: Cheryl Greene, who was your attorney until today, had a 635 phone conversation with two lawyers from Baker and Daniels on January 11, 2001 to 636 resolve and advise them that the letter was sent in error. So efforts were made to correct 637 any misapprehensions. 638 639 14