Junction City Commissioners have voted 3-2 to maintain their offer of $1 for the current Junction City High School site once it is closed following construction of a new high school. The City wants the existing building demolished and the site cleared before assuming maintenance of the property and possible conversion to public use in the future.
That offer was initially made in March and was then reaffirmed Tuesday evening. The decision followed a counteroffer from the school district which included three options. They were to retain 17 acres of the current high school site for construction of a new elementary school in the future, swap the current JCHS site for 17 acres in the land bank for a future elementary school, and the third called for the City to enhance its offer on the current high school site by including a fair market value for land, tennis courts and football field.
City Commissioner Pat Landes spoke out for maintaining the current offer. "I think that it is absurd, the school district thinks they need 17 acres to build a grade school That's just a ridiculous amount of land. I doubt they have a site anywhere that has over 10. We're the ones that proposed this in the first place so we could maybe earmark some land bank lots to do this."
Landes noted that the District had come up with the 17-acre option kind out of the blue. "I think we stand pat where we are. They act like we haven't done anything to support the high school project at all, everything was on them. We've spent millions of dollars to improve the safety and logistics around that high school. " The commissioner said in his opinion the City is done. "It's $1 for the property and that's it. If they don't want it have a good day. We're selling land bank lots every meeting. We are not going to have any problem getting rid of these things in time. That is going to be the preferred place that people are going to want to live."
City Manager Allen Dinkel noted that he could accept the option for a swap of the current JCHS site for 17 acres in the land bank, but he preferred to maintain the existing $1 offer.
Commissioner Tim Brown moved to deny the three options presented by USD 475 and to go with the offer already made by the City for $1 and to "leave it at that." Commissioners Nate Butler and Pat Landes voted yes while Mayor Jeff Underhill and Commissioner Ronna Larson voted no.
There has been discussion in the community about possibly converting the existing JCHS site in the future into a sports complex and a location for a natatorium, possible performance pavilion and a new library. No final action has been taken on that idea.
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June 02, 2021 at 05:07PM
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Junction City Commission stands pat on offer for the current JCHS site Posted Jun 02, 2021 - JC Post
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