School Board considers options for Byrnes, Doubek campus
By Tracy Ouellette
Editor
The future of the Chester Byrnes and Doubek school buildings was the subject of a lengthy discussion at Monday night’s meeting of the East Troy School Board.
School District Business Manager Kathy Zwirgzdas, who was filling in for District Administrator Chris Hibner, came to the board for direction on what it was willing to consider for the buildings after meeting with library officials and Village Board President Randy Timms.
The East Troy Lions Public Library is looking at the possibility of either building a new facility, buying a new facility, or heavily renovating and expanding the existing facility.
Zwirgzdas said the School District had presented the library board and building committee with three options, which included:
- Option 1 – Administration and alternate education stay at Chester Byrnes, the library buys Doubek for its new facility and pays for renovations at Byrnes for School District use. Zwirgzdas told the board the library officials wanted Byrnes taken down so the new library would be visiable;
- Option 2 – The library purchases Byrnes and Doubek and pay the School District $1.5 million so it can build a new administration building. Zwirgzdas said the library officials found this option to be too expensive; and
- Option 3 – The library buys Byrnes for its new facility and School District administration and alternate education go to Doubek. Zwirgzdas said this option didn’t interest the library committee as they felt there were too many problems with the building and it didn’t meet the needs of a modern facility.
Zwirgzdas told the board the library officials and committee members countered the School District’s options with four of their own. They were:
- Option 4 – School District administration moves to the west side of Doubek; alternate education moves to the current library; Byrnes is demolished, and the library has the rest of Doubek for its facility;
- Option 5 – School District administration and alternate education moves to Doubek, Byrnes is demolished and new library is built on the Byrnes site;
- Option 6 – School District administration moves to current library building, alternate education would go somewhere else in the district, library buys Doubek for its new facility and Byrnes is demolished; and
- Option 7 – School District administration moves to the west side of Doubek, alternate education moves into current library building, part of Byrnes remains as park and rec facility and the library uses the rest of Doubek as its new facility.
Zwirgzdas told the board administration was looking for direction because none of the options presented by the library included keeping Byrnes up as is and administration didn’t want to go any further with discussions on this if the board didn’t want to take Byrnes down.
Board member Mike Zei said whether or not the buildings remained, he wanted to see the campuses devoted for civic use. He acknowledged the community’s need for a new library and said it would be an asset to the School District as well.
Zei suggested he and School Board President Ted Zess meet with the library building committee and board members, along with village trustees and Timms to see if they couldn’t work something out. Zei said he wanted to see that the library was ready to move on this and were “committed” to the idea.
“I’m looking for some action on their part,” Zei said.
There was some back-and-forth discussion between the board members with Martha Bresler expressing her dislike at the fact that the library officials seemed to want to demo Byrnes in all it’s options.
“For as many people who you say want Byrnes to come down, I can give you the name of a person who’s told me ‘don’t tear Brynes down,’” she told Zess.
Zess denied that he wanted to tear down Byrnes saying his “only concern” was that the district couldn’t keep paying for the building. “We don’t have the money.”
Zei again asked Zess if they could meet with library and village officials and see if they couldn’t work something out. Zess agreed to the meeting and the board voted to continue discussions with the library about the possible purchase of one or both of the schools.
Tax levy set
The School Board set the tax levy for the 2015-16 school year at Monday night’s meeting. A proposed tax levy of -2.14 percent was approved at the district’s annual meeting on Sept. 28, but that number usually changes when the final numbers on state aid and student enrollment come in by mid-October.
Zwirgzdas said at the annual meeting she was expecting the tax levy to go up by the Oct. 26 meeting to somewhere around -1 percent, but after all the numbers shook out, she presented to the board a -2.03 percent tax levy, which means a 4.35 percent decrease to the mill rate, which will be $9.97 per $1,000 of property value.
