Under the 50-year land-lease deal, Lakota would retain ownership of the land at the site and, at the end of the lease, the property and the building would be owned by the district.
The club will pay 40 percent of the estimated $500,000 expense to remove the existing building, or $200,000, to help defray the cost of the demolition. It would do so at a rate of $10,000 per year for 20 years. The district will pay the remainder.
The recently modified agreement calls for the club to have funding in place by June 2016. Demolition won’t occur until after that point.
Utilizing the 54,000-square-foot building in its current condition without modifications was considered, but ultimately rejected due to cost, infrastructure and security issues, club officials said.
District officials have said not demolishing the site would mean about $20,000 in annual maintenance costs for the building and its grounds, plus the cost of maintaining insurance coverage for the site, dealing with ongoing issues of vandalism and unauthorized use of the grounds.
Spearheading an effort to end the project is Danielle Richardson of the Butler County Campaign for Liberty, Pam Jones of the West Chester Tea Party, Ann Becker from the Cincinnati Tea Party and Mary Jo Bicknell and Pat Williams of the West Chester-Union Twp. Historical Society, Richardson said.
Terms of the deal are “worse than a giveaway” of the property, she said.
“It’s like paying someone $300,000 to accept the gift of the property,” Richardson said.
Jones said the deal puts too much of a burden on West Chester taxpayers.
“I don’t think they should tear the building down,” she said. “It’s perfectly usable. We could use it for group meetings.”
In a letter sent to Lakota school board, Richardson requested the school be saved in its current form.
“It may not make sense for Lakota Schools to spend the money to rehabilitate it as it may not meet current school system needs,” Richardson said. “That is understandable. It does not follow, however, that the building does not meet community needs.
“If Lakota decides that letting go of the building is in the best interest of taxpayers then it needs to be done in a manner that does not cost the school system any money and does not include demolishing the building.”
Richardson proposes that if no other offers have been made for the building and there seems to be no other option for the district to free itself from the liability of owning an old building in need of expensive repairs, that she be allowed to purchase the property and its contents for one dollar.
“The school board claims that this property is a money pit and they cannot keep it on their books,” she said. “If that is true, this offer, which saves the building, is much more beneficial to taxpayers than the current plan.”
Richardson said she requires no repairs or demolition work of any kind from taxpayers and that she would assume responsibility for all costs associated with maintaining and improving the property.
Under the proposal, Richardson would agree to lease the building and parking lot currently being used as an enrollment center back to Lakota schools for 50 years at a rate of $1 per year.
Should the sale be approved, the property would be managed by a coalition of local non-profit organizations that will make the building available for community use and meeting space, something Richardson said is in great demand, especially by the West Chester Tea Party and West Chester-Union Twp. Historical Society, which previously met at the building.
If the school board rejects the offers and moves forward with plans to destroy the building, “one of several legal options” will be pursued, Richardson said.
She accused the district of conducting negotiations during a time it was lobbying voters to approve a $13 million levy.
But Randy Oppenheimer, the district’s spokesman, said Lakota announced in April 2014 an exploratory process into a joint agreement between the district and the club to operate an all-day kindergarten program on the site. Three public Community Conversations were held in June to garner public input.
“We’ve worked hard to get input on this proposal before we ever signed the agreement and … we’ve worked very hard to explain what the transaction is all about and why it’s a good business decision,” Oppenheimer said.
The school board cannot legally consider Richardson’s offer as it is structured, he said.
“There’s law governing how a school board can sell property it owns and it can’t sell it directly to a purchaser like that, it has to put it up for auction,” Oppenheimer said. “There are some limited exceptions, like selling to another governmental entity, but other than that … it has to go through a public auction process.”
If the club hasn’t been successful in its efforts to raise funds to finance the new building, Lakota has the option, after June 1, 2016, to cancel the collaboration agreement, Oppenheimer said.
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