By Michael Howell
Voters in the Corvallis School District will have the chance this November 7 to approve the purchase of 21.23 acres of property that adjoins the school, or not. The property is currently owned by Ravalli Electric Cooperative and the school district has leased 5.69 acres of the land for over 30 years for use as ball fields and a portion of the Middle School playground. But REC is moving out and relocating its operation to Highway 93 and Bell Crossing. The Cooperative hopes to complete its relocation to new facilities by June 2019. It offered the school district the opportunity to buy the property before they listed it for sale.
“They saw our special interest in the property and they are willing to give us this extraordinary opportunity,” said School District Superintendent Tim Johnson. According to Johnson, district representatives have attended over 15 meetings at various community organizations and held a handful of district board meetings to discuss the issue. They have also brought it up at various sports events and other school functions.
“A majority of the response was that it made sense to purchase the property,” said Johnson. He said that the school district was inevitably going to grow and at some point down the line space to grow was going to become a problem.
“This purchase will guarantee that, when the time comes to expand, building can take place on land that adjoins existing facilities, maintaining efficiency of operations,” said Johnson.
What will it cost? The sale price of $1,725,000 for the 21.23 acres and the REC buildings was determined by an appraisal jointly commissioned earlier this year by the REC and the Corvallis School District. The voters are being asked to approve a 5-year Building Reserve Levy in the amount of $345,000 per year. At the end of five years a loan to purchase the property would be fully paid off and the tax obligation would end. The school district is currently debt free. If passed, a taxpayer owning a home with a taxable value of $100,000 would be expected to pay $35.46 per year for the levy. A homeowner with home with a taxable value of $200,000 would pay an additional $70.92 per year in taxes.
According to Johnson, both REC and the District are committed to insuring that all parts of the property are safe for school use. They commissioned some testing of the grounds for PCBs and PCPs. PCBs are found in the old transformers that were stored on the property. PCPs are compounds found in the preservatives used in the telephone poles that were stored on the site. Johnson said that no indications of PCB contamination was found in the soil or the water, but PCP contamination was detected in top soil at the area where poles were stockpiled. Johnson said that the levels detected would meet the standards required for the property to change hands to another commercial enterprise, but it did not meet residential standards. Since the occupation of the property by the school would require meeting residential standards, REC has agreed to remove the contaminated soil at its own expense, according to Johnson. He said that this would be done prior to closing.
“We are not going to buy property with contamination at residential levels,” said Johnson. He said that he was confident that REC was going to do a reasonable job in cleaning up the property.
The 25,000 square feet of facility space that already exists on the property could be put to immediate use for storage as well as administration offices and meeting space. By moving these functions and bus parking to the purchased property, he said space would be freed up on the high school/middle school campus for much needed parking and for the potential expansion of existing buildings.
Another thing about the deal is that REC does not intend on vacating the property until June 2019. In the meantime they would lease the property back from the school district until that date.
“This gives us a year to do some intensive public involvement in working out the details on how the property would actually be used and developed to best accommodate future growth,” said Johnson.
There was a time during the economic downturn starting in 2008 in which enrollment was decreasing, he said, but today there are more students enrolled in the district than ever before in the school’s history. Johnson said if the district passes up this opportunity it will not alleviate the need to accommodate new growth. In the end, he said, the district would have to buy some property but it would probably not be adjacent to the existing property. Not only that, but the district would also potentially lose the lease it enjoys on the property and lose its ball fields and part of its playground. The district currently pays a nominal fee of $500 per year, an amount that has not been raised in three decades.
“If we don’t buy this now we will certainly be looking for property in the future to accommodate growth,” he said. He called it a “ticking clock.”
One more public meeting is scheduled to discuss the proposal and answer any questions from the public on Tuesday, October 24 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Fins Tap House located at 352 Woodside Cutoff.