According to Village of Mahomet Administrator Patrick Brown, the Village sent a new intergovernmental agreement to the Mahomet-Seymour School District on Wednesday, separating the sale of 13 Acres Park and Mahomet-Seymour Junior High School upon the direction of the Village Board of Trustees Tuesday night.
The Mahomet-Seymour School Board also met Monday night in open session with some of the board members expressing concerns over the district’s need to come up with a plan to address overcrowding issues in the district’s four buildings. The majority of the board, in expression, not vote, said that the junior high and 13 Acres Park are two separate agreements.
The new intergovernmental agreement (IGA) could end in the Mahomet-Seymour School District relinquishing ownership of 13 Acres Park to the Village of Mahomet for $225,000. According to Brown, the property was appraised at $350,000.
The village board wants the school board to make a decision on 13 Acres Park by Sept. 30.
But, after hearing M-S board member Colleen Schultz say Monday that the district may need a year to decide what’s best in the long-term facility plan for the district, the Village trustees agreed that they would be willing to allow the board to talk about their future plans until Aug. 31, 2021.
If the school district has not set a plan for the junior high or decides to hold onto the junior high within the next year, then the Village will look for another site for the Mahomet Area Recreation Center.
The new intergovernmental agreement for the sale of 13 Acres Park should come to the school board again in September.
Editor’s Note
As a point of historical record, the following is an account of the Monday and Tuesday night board meetings, although, at this time, the only thing that is relevant for present discussions is that a new IGA, the sale of 13 Acres Park, is on the table.
13 Acres Park
The Village of Mahomet’s interest in 13 Acres Park is two-fold.
For nearly 20 years, the Mahomet Park and Recreation Department has maintained a lot of the facilities at the park, which includes five baseball fields. Each spring, nearly 750 young athletes play on those fields through MPRD programming. Aside from other youth organizations that make use of the baseball and football fields, the Mahomet-Seymour School District also hosts practices at 13 Acres.
In taking ownership of the property, the Village will be able to make improvements to the property, which, according to Village trustee Brian Metzger is full of ditches that cause flooding.
Within the last few years, the Village has seen how the use of tax dollars can improve public places. In taking ownership of Taylor Fields, they were able to provide lighting, a backstop and resurface the parking lot.
Village of Mahomet Community Development Director Kelly Pfeifer said that the Village has taken the 13 Acres’ appraisal and assessed the land’s development potential.
“It is limited for private land development, despite being central in town,” she said. “The high cost is due to drainage and existing infrastructure around it. Its best use is as a park.”
MPRD Director Dan Waldinger said that the plan for 13 Acres would be to complete a baseball complex. Board member Andy Harpst said it may be a good location for tennis courts.
The intergovernmental agreement, as was included in the board packets, would have given ownership of 13 Acres Park to the Village within 60 days of the signed agreement. At that time, no money would be transferred between parties, but each party would adhere to a previous use agreement that requires each entity to maintain general liability insurance, having limits in an amount no less than $1,000,000, coordinate on scheduling of the facilities and maintenance of grounds.
The IGA would run until 2026 when the district might vacate the Mahomet-Seymour Junior High property. Although no public discussions on the future of Mahomet-Seymour Junior High have taken place at the board level, the date was set as a window for the junior high to move to the Conway Farms Subdivision where Middletown Prairie Elementary is, on Churchill Road.
The 2026 date would have been the date where, if the school district were to sell the junior high, the Village would purchase the building, Middletown Park, the track, soccer field, and 13 Acres for $750,000.
If the school district pulled out of the IGA, the Village would not be obligated to pay the District for the transfer of 13 Acres Park to the Village.
In a conversation with Brown on Wednesday, he said that the IGA was poorly worded in this area. As M-S board member Meghan Hennesy pointed out, the Village would have acquired the land in that situation for nothing.
Brown said because Hennesy was right, the language would have been reworded to its original intent of should the district pull out of the IGA because they were selling to another party, 13 Acres would have been given to the Village. But if the district couldn’t pass a referendum for additional tax dollars on a new building or decided to keep the junior high, the Village would be responsible for paying the $225,000.
Mahomet-Seymour Junior High
The proposed project at Mahomet-Seymour Junior High comes with additional taxpayer dollars for both the district and Village, though.
Not only will the district have to pass a referendum for about half of the new building’s price tag, the Village would also have to go to taxpayers for the Mahomet Area Recreation Center (MARC).
The Village would also have to ask taxpayers for additional money for the $750,000 to purchase the junior high property or receive donations. Their plan is to tear at a minimum 60-percent of the building down, leaving both gymnasiums and entry space. The project is estimated at $10 million.
The vision is to also put an outdoor pool on the property. A price tag is not available for that yet, but the Village has said that it would have to come with fundraising and/or a referendum.
Brown said, at this point, the Village is not interested in the junior high school purchase. He believes that the district needs time to work out its long-term plan. Village officials said they are not tied to the junior high property; it was a discussion that was happening for a few years before the public became aware of it in 2019, and if the district decides to go another way, the Village will, too.
But Village Trustee Brian Metzger said that he’d like to know by the end of summer 2021 what direction the district will go.
“I would like some type of guidance from the school board after that year of what their timetable looks like for getting rid of the junior high rather than 5 years down the road, 10 years down the road, 2 years down the road.
“Just so we have an idea because it may not fit into our timetable at that point either,” he said.
After struggling to sell Sangamon Elementary, M-S board member Max McComb said that setting up a buyer for $750,000, although the junior high property had not been appraised yet, was a good move for the district.
On Monday, Pfeier said that the uncertainty surrounding the sale of Sangamon Elementary was a detriment to both the Village and the district. She added that the district should not expect the junior high to sell as office space, as Sangamon did.
“Schools don’t typically sell classroom buildings,” she said. “It says a lot about the strength of Mahomet’s economy and community that Sangamon School was sold and repurposed into a high tax-generating use.”
According to the Village, the land where the junior high sits would likely be demolished and repurposed for residential housing.
But board members Hennesy and Schultz do not want to see the district in another space-needing issue by selling the junior high as it did Sangamon when classrooms are full and residential development continues throughout the Village.
“What is the plan for the district to not need the junior high?” Schultz asked. “I understand the whole plan, the rec. center and everything. As a person with a fiduciary responsibility to the district, I’m trying to figure out what plan we have as a district that makes it reasonable that we would sell the junior high.”
She continued to say the idea of selling the junior high in 2026 without a substantial plan developed is putting the cart before the horse.
“I hear it talked about a lot in the community that we’re going to build a new junior high,” Schultz said. “But even if that plan were to come into fruition and we build a new junior high, we still have space issues, so even the plan that I’ve heard to build a new junior high doesn’t relieve us of that problem. As a board I think that we need to start talking about other options in order to solve our space problem. Then after our space problems are solved, then we can talk about selling our building.”
Hennesy also asked when the price of the junior high had been set, seeing as the price or the sale of the building had not been discussed, only presented, at the school board level.
“There was no vote,” Widener said, “it was just discussions between the Village and the school district.
Hennesy asked for the two boards, rather than the two administrators, to get together to discuss the junior high and 13 Acres Park.
Board member Lori Larson said there was a joint meeting in September 2019. That meeting was the first time either board had heard about the possibility of these land deals.
McComb wanted to know what the board would want to accomplish in another joint meeting.
“I’d like to have discussion about how the appraisal for some of these things was in 2015 and Mahomet has changed quite a bit since then,” Hennesy said. “I don’t know that some of these appraisals shouldn’t be relooked at. I’ve never had the opportunity to discuss the selling price for this; the board has never had the opportunity to discuss any of these things.”
Hennesy stated that she understands why the Village is interested in the deal for the properties, but she did not think that, under these terms, the IGA, as it was presented, was in the best interest of the school district.
Schultz said the meeting a year ago was only the beginning of the conversation. She appreciated that time and discussion, but believed that it was just the first step in a longer process.
“We had a very productive meeting last time, and it seems that we should continue that because I’m not sure who is making decisions on behalf of the board,” Schultz said. “So I would like the board to participate in the discussions.”
M-S board member Merle Giles said he felt the district needed to learn its lesson from the sale of Sangamon in that it was appraised at $2.1 million and sold for $750,000.
Hennesy said she believes the board has a responsibility to get the property appraised prior to signing an agreement that sets a price.
“I think we need to go through the exercise of understanding what these properties might be worth five years later,” she said.
Board member Jeremy Henrichs asked if Hennesy was willing to sell the property for less if the appraisal came back lower than it did in 2015.
“Real estate trends don’t seem to trend that way,” Hennesy said. “As a board member with a fiduciary responsibility, I don’t feel like I can make this decision in a void without the necessary information.”
For Schultz, the need for the junior high is still there, even though the building is getting older.
“We also have to understand what it is that we are looking at in terms of a referendum,” Hennesy said.
McComb said that the discussion of the future of the junior high property keeps getting kicked down the road.
He said that the Village needs to be able to make plans for their recreation center, and if the board doesn’t come to a vision for the junior high property, the Village will look for other options for MARC.
“It doesn’t help for us to tell them that we will sell it to them if we cannot tell them when we’re going to sell it to them,” M-S board member Ken Keefe said.
He suggested that 13 Acres and the sale of the junior high be separated. Giles and McComb agreed that they were separate issues.
Hennesy again suggested that she would like to see a joint meeting. Keefe added that he thinks it’s the responsibility of the boards to engage the public in the discussions.
“We can certainly do that, I don’t disagree,” McComb said. “I don’t think it’s a lack of information and details, I think we have a philosophical difference.”
