Buildings Article Misleading

RE 2/17 article - "Joint committee to discuss school buildings"

Your article is absurdly misleading. So I'll fill in the rest. The school board REFUSES to market those schools. They haven't tried and they aren't interested in trying to market the schools. They were too lazy to even come up with a price for the properties. So this whole issue revolves around backdoor politicss of which the public is totally ignorant.

Its is the fiduciary duty of the school board to get some type of return for the taxpayers on these properties. The critical issue is to get these properties on the tax rolls by finding businesses willing to occupy them. Instead, the school board has done absolutely nothing. They held one meeting a couple months ago to solicit suggestions and since then - nothing.

Archuleta said, "We're still hoping we'll get a local solution." Which is the same thing as, we're not doing anything to market these properties, we just hope a plum drops in our lap and we can call it good.

The city is wasting its time and taxpayers money on "feasibility studies." If there was a significant need for assisted living in Rawlins, then the private sector would have filled it by now.

Converting one of these buildings into a community center is not an option as the city does not have the money, so I wish the paper would stop pushing the idea.

If the school board was a responsible steward of taxpayers resources, they would have placed these properties on the market a year ago and since they haven't, it means one of two things. They are not responsible, or they have backdoor deals in mind. Hoping and praying for local solutions is not a solution.

It costs $200 to place one of these properties on eBay to get worldwide exposure. But it would cost tens of thousands of dollars to demo and dispose of these buildings. Demolishing these buildings would be an absolute travesty.

Two 30,000 square foot elementary schools up for grabs but the school board is just sitting on them except holding "brainstorming" meetings. They are one of the most inept group of bureaucrats I have ever seen. They are sitting vacant now since mid-Jan.