Disappointed Jasper School Corp approves park land purchase

Matt Crane contributed to this story

It has been a rocky road getting to this point, but the Greater Jasper School Corporation Board voted unanimously Monday night to purchase 10 acres of The Parklands property for $173,445 from the City of Jasper.

While all of the board members were disappointed in the amount of acreage offered to them, they all agreed in the end that it was in the best interest of the school corporation to proceed and get what they could, even though they originally wanted more – much more.

Board member Ken Schnaus said that he was ready to move forward. Member Mike Braun said the school corporation got “the best 10 acres” of the property.

Member Greg Eckerle wanted more than the 10 acres, but accepted the offer.

Bernie Vogler, said that he was happy that they got the pre-conditions on the land use removed from the contract language and that they should approve the purchase.

Board President Nancy Habig was the most outspoken in expressing disappointment in only being able to purchase 10 acres. She stated during the meeting that it was the “most frustrating and disappointing process that I have ever gone through.”

She gave a little history of the process stating that the board began their inquiry into purchasing between 20 and 40 acres of the land from the golf course management board in August of 2012 through a real estate agency.

Then, the City of Jasper also expressed similar interest in the property and city officials asked the school board if they could take the lead on acquiring the property stating that a better price per acre could be obtained if the two organizations were not bidding against one another.

The school corporation acquiesced to the city’s request.

“I certainly didn’t think at that time we have to negotiate, and negotiate, and negotiate. Until we got to this and having to take a lot less property than what we wanted,” Habig said during the meeting. “Nobody knew they were going to take over everything.”

Then, as the process proceeded, the number of acres that the school corporation was allowed to consider for purchase shrank, until the final offer was the 10 acres from the City of Jasper. But the board maintains throughout that they wanted more than the 10 acres – at least 15.

Superintendent Dr. Tracey Lorey asked the board to consider approving the purchase of the acreage and afterwards said she was happy have the agreement in place. “Whether or not in the end we agreed how much is enough for both entities, I think we are grateful that we’re ready to seal the deal and move on to the projects that we have,” she said.

Habig said in an interview after the vote that the school board was backed into a corner. “We didn’t have any choice tonight. We’ve all felt, there was unanimous opinion that we need to take what was offered,” she explained.

Habig says that there was a misunderstanding about what the terms of an agreement would be. “We had what we thought was a ‘good faith’ agreement to purchase the property that we wanted,” she said, “but yes, I’m ok with this vote, I voted for it. I’m also very pleased that the constraints that were attempted to be put on there are not in there anymore.”

Habig stated the proposals made early on for the sale of the property included items that required the school to agree to never build a football field or building on the ten acres. Additionally, the school would have to provide detailed plans, timelines and other documents to the city for any projects on the property.

“We pointed out that the Board is authorized to make decisions, such as use of properties, only after public input and discussion,” Habig stated in an email. “Plus any plan over $2,000,000.00 would have to be approved by the public by referendum. We did not want to restrict the rights of future boards and the public to make decisions that they deemed best for that period in time.”

The city removed the restrictions after the school’s counter-proposal.

The contract needs some final work, but then will be delivered to the school board for their signatures. School Board attorney Art Nordoff was comfortable with the board voting to accept the contract, stating that they have the boundaries they need in place in order to proceed.