Land Options Open to 204

[warriorpride]

gatordog said:

wvhsparent said:

gatordog said:

Which is the area I am in...Hence my stubborn stance of which we go by an ES to go to another.....

I feel you pain. Your area is no doubt underserved by school sites. I move that your area gets first choice on MS assignment!!

If I can try to make the glass "half full"...the northern part of Eola and new Ferry road makes traffic pretty good compared to other areas on 204!

Gatordog is onto a good idea. Can we gather the criteria the SB used to determine the "best" site (this is available on ipsd.org), as well as the criteria that the SB used to come up with the final boundaries (things like crossing train tracks, balanced achievement, etc. - don't know if these will be as easy to come up with), and try to weigh/rank or compare those criteria with what we perceive to be the remaining options? We can add in some additional factors now, too, like cost, timeframe, etc. I think that these other factors need to be kept in front of everyone when considerding jumping off of BB - the $ is a big factor, but to me, it's a temporary, 1-time factor (i.e. this HAS NOTHING do to with the operating cost), and there are other, more permanent factors that still need visibility during this process.

[lacy]

bob said:

lacy said:

Gatordog, I would really appreciate it if you wouldn't put words in my mouth.

And, I would have to ask you if you are motivated to support BB because you get out of the school you are in. Just wondering.

I have multiple concerns with BB - beginning with the time and money we have spent to date to secure it and continuing with paying more than double what we were led to believe during the referendum it would cost, and moving on to whether the SB can deliver a school with the same amenities as WVHS and NVHS and lastly, wondering why the SB has not explored other options in light of the problems they have had acquiring BB. I am also not wild about it's proximity to 59 - whether you or the others on this board think that has merit or not. It doesn't change what I think.

If you have read my posts, then you would know that I have consistently brought up the first 4 concerns. And they are my primary concerns.

Perhaps it serves a useful purpose to you and others to jump all over me about my concerns about 59? Anything to change the subject and cast people who don't agree with the majority on this board in a negative light? It would appear that way.

Here we go.....

[lacy]

archwinsome said:

The reason can be as simple as "*I* don't like to drive on Rt. 59".. and that would be a fine reason to justify what you are saying about it from your own personal point of view

But trying to project that Rt. 59 is a deal killer for BB but not a deal killer for every other place is inconsistent at best.

Anything to avoid discussing the things that are really an issue here:

1. Increase cost of land
2.

[lacy]

2. Where are we getting the money? Casey had a very interesting post yesterday regarding bonds that no one even responded to.

3. What is plan B - is the SB going to look at any alternatives?

4. Where are the enrollment numbers for this year?

These things (and more) are like the white elephant in the room - no one wants to talk about them. But you can pontificate all day about Rt. 59. I find that simply fascinating.

[momof3]

doctorwho said:

wvhsparent said:

I will support BB if and only if........someone can find a way to get Brachs Candy Corp to subsidize a large part of it.........

www.brachs.com/about/contact.asp

Let the email campaign begin.....BTW I will not be participating............

since there's no living heir, and hence likely no vested interest - this ain't gonna happen.

iirc the brodie attorney (Helm) was quoted in the papers - the brach attorney (Simon) was very low profile - don't recall a single quote/comment in the paper - probably because the Brach name is still associated with the candy and the foundation & they don't want any negative press. The former president, Raymond Simon, grew the Brach Foundation assets considerably during his tenure - and sounds like one extremely smart cookie -
"His tenure saw the assets of the Foundation grow from $30 million when he took charge of the Foundation in 1986, to over $125 million today, with more than $70 million having been provided to grantee organizations during this period. "

www.luc.edu/law_eupdate/07_march/simongift.html
www.luc.edu/loyolamagazine/summer07/GiftsFaculty.html

The foundation has given grants to high schools in the past.
www.mchs.org/development/grants.php

[Arch]

Lacy, re-read your posts. You brought up Rt. 59 over and over and how people in your neighborhood were all echoing the route 59 concern. Plenty here tried to say it's no more of a concern than how it sits today... the rest you can go re-read for yourself.

As for where we are getting the 'extra' money: It's not been determined that we need more than the 124 million right now because we've not heard anything new from Turner Construction about whether they will take a price reduction on the job itself (not the materials) for the same job just to GET the job. As many said about BB land, "You're putting the cart before the horse" on that one. Until we know the land cost *PLUS* any updated construction costs or options we don't even know if we need more money.

Enrollment numbers were posted from day 6. All one had to do was email the board. DPC posted them. I would imagine soon the Sep 30th ones will be out soon too, and it will be in the same time frame they were last year.

As for a plan B, we'll have to see what the SB decides to do after meeting w/ Turner Construction and getting the rest of the numbers which include the break-away costs from abandoning BB entirely.

So, find it as fascinating as you want, but the only thing you asked about or brought up that we COULD actually discuss further with facts was Route 59 and how inconsistent your 'justifications' for why a particular subdivision should not have to travel up and down it but many others can and that's OK in your mind.

[lacy]

Arch, if bringing up 59 "over and over" means that I brought it up today, then I guess so - and I do still see it as a concern. I think you're grasping at straws in an effort to control the conversation.

Why don't you comment on Casey's post from yesterday concerning this windfall in bond revenue which is apparently going to magically solve everything?

No, I guess it's easier to make cracks at Rt. 59.

[lacy]

warriorpride said:

gatordog said:

wvhsparent said:

I feel you pain. Your area is no doubt underserved by school sites. I move that your area gets first choice on MS assignment!!

If I can try to make the glass "half full"...the northern part of Eola and new Ferry road makes traffic pretty good compared to other areas on 204!

Gatordog is onto a good idea. Can we gather the criteria the SB used to determine the "best" site (this is available on ipsd.org), as well as the criteria that the SB used to come up with the final boundaries (things like crossing train tracks, balanced achievement, etc. - don't know if these will be as easy to come up with), and try to weigh/rank or compare those criteria with what we perceive to be the remaining options? We can add in some additional factors now, too, like cost, timeframe, etc. I think that these other factors need to be kept in front of everyone when considerding jumping off of BB - the $ is a big factor, but to me, it's a temporary, 1-time factor (i.e. this HAS NOTHING do to with the operating cost), and there are other, more permanent factors that still need visibility during this process.

Good idea, but would this wouldn't be current information, and I'm not convinced the SD's land analysis was very objective to begin with.

If we could get some current and objective information (not someone's spin), then I think this would be a good idea.

[Arch]

lacy said:

Arch, if bringing up 59 "over and over" means that I brought it up today, then I guess so - and I do still see it as a concern. I think you're grasping at straws in an effort to control the conversation.

Why don't you comment on Casey's post from yesterday concerning this windfall in bond revenue which is apparently going to magically solve everything?

No, I guess it's easier to make cracks at Rt. 59.

Lacy, I'm not counting on any more bond revenue so the concern is moot. At the moment neither you nor I know if anything 'extra' is needed because we do not know what the new numbers are from Turner Construction. Everything else is speculation.

[rew]

Wow, MO3, visiting the Brach Foundation website was a bit eye opening...

[casey]

archwinsome said:

lacy said:

.

Why don't you comment on Casey's post from yesterday concerning this windfall in bond revenue which is apparently going to magically solve everything?

Lacy, I'm not counting on any more bond revenue so the concern is moot. At the moment neither you nor I know if anything 'extra' is needed because we do not know what the new numbers are from Turner Construction. Everything else is speculation.

How can we ASSume that there is not 'extra' needed? We just found out what the BB land cost is and it's certainly not what the SB counted on. Let's face it, Turner Construction can't possibly have had that much padding built in their construction costs with much room for deletions/modifications. No way can it be done getting the exact same school for the $124M (including land).

The bond revenue isn't what the SB (or Britt Carson) wants us to believe. It just very simply isn't the $10M that many think! Where's this extra money going to come from? It's not. Time to call for independent and full disclosure of accounting and financials from the SD/SB. Anyone know how that is done? What would I need to do to get that information? I can't imagine one simple email/phone call would do the trick .

[gatordog]

lacy said:

2. Where are we getting the money? Casey had a very interesting post yesterday regarding bonds that no one even responded to.

3. What is plan B - is the SB going to look at any alternatives?

4. Where are the enrollment numbers for this year?

These things (and more) are like the white elephant in the room - no one wants to talk about them. But you can pontificate all day about Rt. 59. I find that simply fascinating.

Lacy there are other threads for all these topics 2-4.

Item 1 (omitted above) on cost is relavent, and it has been discussed. Macom land is far far from being free. PL's quoted price PLUS complexities and cost of land not being directly available for purchase, major road repositioning etc. Its not completely obvious that these aggregate costs are less than 55 acres of BB.

Lets table discussion for now (because we dont have the info) on whether or not Macom savings are $10 mil, $5mil, or $0 mil (it possibly could cost more for all we now).

What I would objectively like to hear from you, is from a district-wide perspective, how would you make the Macom site workable over other possibilities?

Here is where I am at: A northern option is workable, but not optimal. By my figuring, I dont think Macom is really even workable.

Starting point has to be momof3 idea that NVHS loses Fresh Cntr.

Lacy which ES's would you propose fill MVHS at Macom? Which leave NV? Is the geography favorable to any school north of Montgomery Rd/83rd St? Is the geography favorable to any school south and east of 59 and 103rd? What are aggregate miles travelled? What does it look like in terms of economic-gap levelling?

To make Macom a truly viable location, I wish somebody would help me see acceptable answers for these. I havent been able to conjour ones up yet...

[bob]

casey said:

archwinsome said:

Lacy, I'm not counting on any more bond revenue so the concern is moot. At the moment neither you nor I know if anything 'extra' is needed because we do not know what the new numbers are from Turner Construction. Everything else is speculation.

How can we ASSume that there is not 'extra' needed? We just found out what the BB land cost is and it's certainly not what the SB counted on. Let's face it, Turner Construction can't possibly have had that much padding built in their construction costs with much room for deletions/modifications. No way can it be done getting the exact same school for the $124M (including land).

The bond revenue isn't what the SB (or Britt Carson) wants us to believe. It just very simply isn't the $10M that many think! Where's this extra money going to come from? It's not. Time to call for independent and full disclosure of accounting and financials from the SD/SB. Anyone know how that is done? What would I need to do to get that information? I can't imagine one simple email/phone call would do the trick .

Bond revenue

Take the $65 million and give it 3 years (we are 1.25 years in already) interest at 5%.= $9.75 million in interest.

Issue the other $60 million and use that money first to pay off the first set of $60 million of bills.

[casey]

The SB is authorized to sell $124M in bonds. It sounds like the SB sold $62M in July 2006. When you sell bonds you must start paying interest on those bonds. With a 6% interest the SB would have paid $3.5M in bond interest for the last year. To say the SB made interest from the bonds of $10.5 million would mean that $62M in cash investments (unused bonds) made $14M in a 1 year period ($10.5M interest + $3.5M bond interest expense). Impossible.

To make $14M on a $62M investment in one year would require a return of 22%. That rate of return is impossible based on the sound principles of fiscal responsibility maintained by the SB. To make money like that you'd have to be willing to lose money like that. The number and amount of interest are very simly wrong.

Again, can anyone tell me how to get the financial information from our SB? We should know what we're working with.

[bob]

casey said:

The SB is authorized to sell $124M in bonds. It sounds like the SB sold $62M in July 2006. When you sell bonds you must start paying interest on those bonds. With a 6% interest the SB would have paid $3.5M in bond interest for the last year. To say the SB made interest from the bonds of $10.5 million would mean that $62M in cash investments (unused bonds) made $14M in a 1 year period ($10.5M interest + $3.5M bond interest expense). Impossible.

To make $14M on a $62M investment in one year would require a return of 22%. That rate of return is impossible based on the sound principles of fiscal responsibility maintained by the SB. To make money like that you'd have to be willing to lose money like that. The number and amount of interest are very simly wrong.

Again, can anyone tell me how to get the financial information from our SB? We should know what we're working with.

I believe the interest rate of the bonds were about 5 1/2%.

My example isn't for 1 year but for 3 years.

Your best bet to find the interest and bond detail wouldn't be the SB but the finance dept of the admin. They have been very helpful in answering my questions.