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District agrees to buy land
Of The Daily Oakland Press

The Pontiac school board debated for more than 90 minutes before trustees decided to purchase from the state a 28-acre plot of land formerly known as the Clinton Valley Center, Fairlawn Center campus.

The sale price for the parcel will be $1.95 million - an amount considered far below market value - with the money coming from the district's general fund.

School board members voted 5-2 vote to proceed with the purchase. Trustee Chris Northcross cast one of the dissenting votes.

"I think it's going to come out that I was for the Fairlawn purchase, but against the method we're using to pay for it," Northcross said.

Northcross added that he thought money for the purchase was to come from the district's educational trust fund, an account with about $11 million in it that was acquired by the district as payment for several lawsuits.

However, board members decided to buy the land using money from the district's general operating fund.

"We ended last fiscal year with about an $11 million surplus," said Terry Pruitt, assistant superintendent of business services. "That's our fund balance, money that we would have generated over and above any of our expenses for the year. The board has a policy of trying to maintain a 10-percent fund balance, and for the last few years they've been able to do that."

School officials plan to build a school on the land, most likely, another high school.

"Clearly, the intent is to develop it," Pruitt said. "I don't think anybody has decided that it's going to be (a new) Pontiac Central High School.

"I think we're years away from that. "It's wise at this point to leave our options open. It's an excellent option with proper acreage for a nice school campus."

As part of the resolution to buy the Fairlawn Center campus, school officials plan to use money from a proposed $99.9 million bond proposal - an election is scheduled for May 3 - to pay the cost of the land, placing nearly $2 million of the bond money back into the general fund.

However, the proposal, which calls for the building of a new middle school and two elementary schools among other things, does not include money set aside for the construction of a new high school.

That means, "We're going to have to go for another bond," Northcross said. "It might be another five or six years, (but) I believe we should be regularly going out for a bond as we need to replace buildings."

With a debate in question about where the money was expected to come from, school board members only passed it after a second attempt was made with an amendment to the resolution.

School board members were unable to table discussion for another meeting because the district had to inform the state of its intent to purchase the property by Monday.

"For the future of Pontiac schools, I'm happy it went through," said school board Secretary Eirther Shelmonson-Bey. "We have to attract students to stay in business, so we have to strategically look at where we house students."
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