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RAC purchase tabled at special school board meeting
A special Riverton school board meeting March 30 at 5:30 p.m., which also doubled as a retreat, was held at the district office.
Before going into closed session, the board heard from two people in attendance.
First, Ralph Willoughby asked the board: “I was just curious, why are you all of a sudden taking a vote before the election? How much is going to cost to maintain this place
after we buy, if we buy it? And being 40th out of 50 in Sangamon County in schools, I think we need to work on our teachers and do a little better job than what we’ve been
doing.”
Then a reporter asked, “I just had a question regarding the property purchase for the athletic club, because I know after the last meeting [March 14 regular school board
meeting] had concluded and had adjourned, I did ask what would be coming up at this meeting, and I was told the balanced scorecard and policy changes for the handbook,
but no mention was made at all about the property purchase. So I’m just kind of curious how, within a time span of 15 calendar days it’s on the agenda when it initially wasn’t
going to be?”
Superintendent Mulligan responded: “First of all, we’ve been waiting for months for the contracts to get done with the attorneys and right after the meeting, Lisa, they were able
to work some of the details out. I did let Byron know about the property purchase, so it’s just something that came up in terms of timing. There’s no reason it’s happening
before the election, it’s just a matter of the attorneys because we’ve been talking about doing this for several months. Maintenance, there’s certainly going to be some
increased maintenance cost. We’re going to talk about that tonight. We’re going to have some additional costs related to upkeep and that type of thing. We have had all of the
stuff inspected – bleachers, that kind of thing – are fine. We’re not going to need to do any major upgrades on those right away. Certainly we know there’s going to be some
ongoing maintenance as we go.”
The board came out of closed session at 6:35. Nonneman began: “As a result of business item #3B, ‘Consider resolution authorizing and directing the purchase of certain
real estate by Riverton Community Unit School District #14,’ we will postpone that agenda item mainly due to some changes which came to us today in regards to the contract.
This item will be on the agenda at the regular April meeting.”
He continued, “We will also schedule a building committee meeting on April 7 at 4:30 to discuss the changes in the contract.”
Under “Discussion items” listed on the agenda, “capital improvement list,” that too was postponed.
The board then went on to begin discussion of middle and high schools’ policy changes for 2011-2012 and the balanced scorecard. Mulligan plans to write a column on the
scorecard in a future issue.
A special Riverton school board meeting March 30 at 5:30 p.m., which also doubled as a retreat, was held at the district office.
Before going into closed session, the board heard from two people in attendance.
First, Ralph Willoughby asked the board: “I was just curious, why are you all of a sudden taking a vote before the election? How much is going to cost to maintain this place
after we buy, if we buy it? And being 40th out of 50 in Sangamon County in schools, I think we need to work on our teachers and do a little better job than what we’ve been
doing.”
Then a reporter asked, “I just had a question regarding the property purchase for the athletic club, because I know after the last meeting [March 14 regular school board
meeting] had concluded and had adjourned, I did ask what would be coming up at this meeting, and I was told the balanced scorecard and policy changes for the handbook,
but no mention was made at all about the property purchase. So I’m just kind of curious how, within a time span of 15 calendar days it’s on the agenda when it initially wasn’t
going to be?”
Superintendent Mulligan responded: “First of all, we’ve been waiting for months for the contracts to get done with the attorneys and right after the meeting, Lisa, they were able
to work some of the details out. I did let Byron know about the property purchase, so it’s just something that came up in terms of timing. There’s no reason it’s happening
before the election, it’s just a matter of the attorneys because we’ve been talking about doing this for several months. Maintenance, there’s certainly going to be some
increased maintenance cost. We’re going to talk about that tonight. We’re going to have some additional costs related to upkeep and that type of thing. We have had all of the
stuff inspected – bleachers, that kind of thing – are fine. We’re not going to need to do any major upgrades on those right away. Certainly we know there’s going to be some
ongoing maintenance as we go.”
The board came out of closed session at 6:35. Nonneman began: “As a result of business item #3B, ‘Consider resolution authorizing and directing the purchase of certain
real estate by Riverton Community Unit School District #14,’ we will postpone that agenda item mainly due to some changes which came to us today in regards to the contract.
This item will be on the agenda at the regular April meeting.”
He continued, “We will also schedule a building committee meeting on April 7 at 4:30 to discuss the changes in the contract.”
Under “Discussion items” listed on the agenda, “capital improvement list,” that too was postponed.
The board then went on to begin discussion of middle and high schools’ policy changes for 2011-2012 and the balanced scorecard. Mulligan plans to write a column on the
scorecard in a future issue.
Issue Date: April 7, 2011
