Seattle Schools Community Forum

The agenda is now available for the Operations Committee meeting this week.  There are several items that could give insight about the direction of capacity management and capital renovations. One is the semi-annual BEX Oversight Committee report .  This is generally short and quite dry but who knows?  The Committee members may have some compelling insights (especially if they got asked their opinions on the acquisition of the Federal Reserve building). Two, is a report from Flip Herndon about that very issue of acquisition of the Federal Reserve building. Will the district put in a bid?  They discussed this with the Board in Executive Session.  Opening bid minimum on Dec. 5th was $5M with a $100K deposit required.   There are, so far, no bids on the building.  The government requires an all-cash payment for final sale. Three, there is the " Capital Semi-Annual report update " also from Flip Herndon. There will also be a Bell Times Task...

I did forget to mention this previously and an alert reader reminded me of it; there's a notation on the Board agenda for an Executive Session at the end of the meeting: Executive Session: To consider the selection of a site or the acquisition of real estate – This closed session will begin at the conclusion of the regular Board meeting and last approximately forty-five minutes. The legislative session will not reconvene after the executive session, and no action will be taken as a result of the executive session.    I believe this is likely to be over how much the district is willing to pay for the Federal Reserve building and land.  $10M? $15M? $20M?  I haven't seen any estimates of how much it is worth (given its condition and its landmarking status). The auction starts on Dec. 5th and continues until Jan. 28, 2015.  Opening bid is $5M.   The district, if successful, would buy themselves land and a building and, doing it t...