The Wamego USD 320 Board of Education held a special meeting to discuss aspects of the District’s facilities needs. At Monday’s special meeting, Greg Vahrenberg, Bond Council from Piper Jaffray presented a detailed analysis of the District’s options for Bond Financing. He based his analysis on numbers gleaned from the architect’s drawings of the District’s plans, and covered financing options from 5 million to 38 million dollars. The analysis covered the mill levy impact to the taxpayer for the different financing options.
Since these were only estimates of financing options to give the Board an idea of what it would cost the District, Vahrenberg said the secret to passing a school bond election is to get the project right before presenting it to the public. The Board has made no decision on the architect’s plans.
The group picked apart the architects’ plans. The plans presented at a prior meeting made no provisions for the old Catholic Church building. Dave Karnowski, citizen and taxpayer, presented a letter to the board outlining uses for the Church building and former rectory.
After a brief discussion, Board President Rob Adams said his personal opinion is that the Church holds historical significance, but it doesn’t compare to a new building. Board member Amy Schwein made a motion to contact the archdiocese to tell them to proceed with razing plans. The motion did not go to a vote, and further discussion was tabled to the next regular meeting.
Board members asked the Administrators what they thought of the architects plan for their particular building. There were a lot of different scenarios discussed, and new design plans brought forward, but nothing concrete was decided. Further discussions will take place at the next regular meeting.
