The Sedona-Oak Creek School District has postponed discussions until July on whether to accept a letter of intent to sell Big Park Community School in Oak Creek Village to Yavapai County, but the proposal appears to have come out of nowhere. appear.
Many SOCSD taxpayers, VOC residents, and Sedona area stakeholders feel blindsided by the county’s proposal to purchase key land owned by local taxpayers, but the county has a stake in Prescott. based in the Verde Valley, often without the best interests of the Verde Valley in mind.
The school’s largest and most important tenant is VOC’s Sedona Public Library. Yavapai County District 3 Superintendent Donna Michaels recently voted to end funding for the library, asking the Sedona City Council to make up the difference and compensate for its failure to protect and serve voters. Forced.
For residents, the Sedona Public Library in the VOC is more than just a storehouse for books, it’s a community gathering place and a place for students to make the most of the closed Big Park campus.
Michaels argues the county has no taxes and has to cut $76,826 from a library 4.5 miles away from his home, yet the county buys real estate without a firm plan to use it. tens of millions of dollars to spare.
At least when the Sedona City Council spent more than $20 million on Sedona Cultural Park, the city council promised to one day build affordable housing. Until we build a colony on the Moon, there won’t be any troops there, but our unborn grandchildren have something to look forward to.
The proposed deal is a 19-year lease-to-purchase agreement, so the library is likely safe for now. Who knew bureaucratic delays could pay off?
We sincerely hope that the SOCSD board will include a warning to keep the library and other tenants out of Michaels hands. Considering that nonprofits have no place to stay because of commercial space rental prices, they see facilities in the district as their last resort.
several hours a week. What happens to churches and other nonprofits renting the BPCS campus was not discussed.
David Zzolkovsky/Larson Newspaper
It’s not entirely clear why Michaels would want this. The Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office needs a substation within the VOC, but it makes more sense for SOCSD that he rent space directly from YCSO rather than sell the entire campus. Such stations are not manned 24/7 and do not include holding cells. It would be a place for legislators to fill out paperwork, meet with victims and witnesses, and provide a place for residents to report crimes. Instead of a campus that accommodates 750 children, one or he two rooms would suffice.
Michaels said the campus could be used for telemedicine, which appears to be the platform for her 2024 re-election: a showdown with Northern Arizona Medical. A telemedicine facility may be suitable for one of many vacant commercial buildings within the VOC or a dedicated facility. That would be easier than taking over a school campus and turning it into a makeshift hospital with no doctors.
It’s also unclear how the deal will benefit the county. The county already has a large complex for board of directors and county services in Cottonwood.
Cottonwood, also in District 3 of Michaels, is the geographic and economic center of the Verde Valley and is home to most government workers who cannot afford a home in Sedona or the VOC and must commute. . State government agencies such as the Department of Motor Vehicles and the Arizona Department of Economic Security already exist, making Camp He a convenient location for Verde’s 12,100 residents and Clarkdale’s 4,200 residents.
At this point in the election cycle, Mr. Michaels’ chances of re-election are at best 50-50, but even if the deal passes, would the next director, who could be based in the densely populated areas of Sedona or Cottonwood, want it? No guarantees. A remote courthouse was part of an election plan by a defeated opponent.
SOCSD has short-term gains, but selling the campus after 19 years would permanently remove it from the district’s inventory. If demographics change within the next 20 years and West Sedona schools become significantly overcrowded, it’s entirely possible that the district will recognize the need for a second campus.
School districts can only sell land to other governments. Since the county does not have this provision, it is possible that SOCSD will sell the land to the county, which in turn will sell the land to private developers for hotels, resorts and shopping centers. Building affordable housing complexes is possible, but very unlikely.
Given that the county will be the seller, potential buyers can be quickly tracked to get approval for any project they desire.
Unless the county’s letter of intent is very explicit and contains warnings to protect the VOC community well beyond Michaels and into the far future, SOCSD will instead rent parts of the campus to the county as needed. should.
Unless the county has a specific, detailed and grand grand vision for its school campuses, including those who survive Michaels’ term, it makes no sense for school districts to sell on a pipe dream that puts current tenants at risk. With the future in question, VOC and SOCSD taxpayers are in even worse shape than they are now by only partially renting out their shuttered campuses.
