Rice Development Partners and Rice School (DMPS SB 10/02/07)

Although several school board directors called the sale of land where Rice School once stood in the Beaverdale neighborhood a simple land deal, there has been nothing simple about it. Part of that is due to the structure of Des Moines’ city and school government. Part of it is due to the historical reputation of the board as not being responsible to the citizens. Part of it is due to the passion of people living in the neighborhood. The final part of it is the terms of the sale contract itself.

The matter before the board at this meeting was straightforward. There was a request that the school district contribute to the cost of correcting a storm water problem at 3001 Beaver Avenue. This was the site of an elementary school known as Rice School that was closed in 2005 and torn down. Rice Development Partners (RDP) bought the land for $650,000 in “as is” condition with time to conduct a review of the property and a five-day option after that review was completed, as was done on September 30, to decide to back out. There was no penalty for backing out of the contract, but nobody mentioned that during this meeting.

The sale of the property went through a process that included bids, reviews, and neighborhood meetings. There has been neighborhood distrust and dissatisfaction of the winning bid by RDP from the beginning. One speaker at this meeting cited a survey that indicated 92% of Beaverdale residents did not want the RDP sale. Many residents want the land to become a park instead of having houses built on it. All of these emotions were still in play when RDP asked the school board to pay a third of an estimated $400,000 to link drainage from the development to a storm sewer. The city council and the RDP agreed to pay the other two-thirds of the cost. Nobody at the school board meeting questioned the estimate of $400,000, which was based in part on where city employees identified RDP could connect to a storm sewer.

Both proponents and opponents made the claim of acting for the children. It seemed at times as though the debate was a divorce and the children were being used as surrogates for the parents’ dislike of each other. Several board members took umbrage at the number of people with whom they have talked and people at the meeting who said the directors did not care about the kids.

Another disagreement centered around how much money the school district would receive from the sale. Arguments included: estimated tax revenues over 20 years, value of property surrounding Rice Field if it were not a park, loss of revenue from a 10-year Tax Increment Financing (TIF) given to RDP, and, ultimately, how the vote on paying for the sewer connection would play in the 2010 vote to extend the one-cent school option sales tax.

At one point Director Jeannette Woods asked if anyone knew the value of the land. This was a result of the argument that with the sewer connection cost now officially known the land would be worth less. This led to considerable board discussion with the values of the purchase bids being cited as the land’s value. Those bids were identified by board members as ranging from over $400,000 to $750,000. If the board had received an appraisal of the land before the bidding process, it was not mentioned at this meeting. A city employee said that the cost of connecting to the storm sewer was estimated to be between $350,000 and $500,000. There was clarification that with no development on the land, there was no run-off problem. A storm sewer connection would be needed only with development.  Several people talking at the meeting noted that the drainage issues were widely known. Nobody specifically connected the “as is” condition of the sale to the value of original bids offered.

The cost to the district of paying for part of the storm sewer connection seemed to shrink as the meeting progressed.  The original $133,000 share was shortened to $130,000 for ease in debate. It was then reduced further as the figure of $525,000 instead of $650,000 was given as the resulting defacto sale price. That simple subtraction would mean the sewer connection cost to the district is only $125,000.

The board approved the request to pay a third of the storm sewer connection in a 4-1 vote. Jon Narcisse voted no. Connie Boesen recused herself because her family is involved with the deal. Teree Caldwell-Johnson abstained from both discussion and voting. Since she was abstaining, President Dick Murphy asked Caldwell-Johnson to leave the board room but Boesen remained in her seat.

Guest Writer: M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa and covers school board meetings for AroundDesMoines.com.