001We'll talk later, Jim. Okay. >> No, you're good. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um, do we have Jenny? That'll just be a minute. One of our board members is joining via phone call. Hello. You can just sign in right there. Welcome. Welcome. Have a seat. >> Just about to get started. >> All right. I'm going to put you on speaker phone. Okay. >> Okay. >> All right. Um, it's 6:31 p.m. on uh September 18th, 2025. I'm going to call this meeting of the Atlantic Community School District Board of Education. This is a special board meeting we're having. Like to acknowledge the order. Could we have the roll call, please? >> Jenny Goodri, >> yes. >> Jenny Jordan, >> yes. >> Josh McLaren, >> yes. >> Laura Mlan, >> yes. >> Christy Pel, >> yes. >>
002Thank you. Uh, we have a very brief agenda. with just two action items on it. Uh, can I have a motion to approve? >> Second. >> Jenny, >> yes. >> Josh, >> yes. >> Laura, >> yes. >> Christine, >> yes. Jody, >> yes. >> Okay. Um, before we begin, I did just want to take a minute. I can't believe I'm doing this again, but to recognize that um we've had a a a death of one of our students and um it's uh it's it's reeling uh in the schools uh and for for us as board members too and for all of our staff um in particular for the ones uh who are more closely related to our students and uh we just really appreciate all of them and I know my heart is out for
003everybody. um as well as for their family. I'm going to just take a minute um just to pause and uh great if you feel like otherwise just took a minute. Um the young lady was in seventh grade. I assume people Uh I really wanted to have some sort of great words to say u but there's nothing there's absolutely nothing to say except for that um our hearts are absolutely with our parents and um tonight uh this board is going to be looking at two action items. Both of them are related to uh the the master plan that this board has been working on for I think a year, a little over a year. Um yeah, because it was during our our summer board retreat that we talked about what are you know as we look
004forward to the future of our district, what are some of the needs that we need that we need to address and how do we go about that? and uh and so we invited in some um consultants who are special special specialized in helping boards um think through uh the issues of their needs. We started out with a very large list of things that were needed, including the high school roof, which we're going ahead and working on that project now um with money that we had saved. Um and then a whole bunch of other things, many of which we were able to shift onto lists of just sort of long-term. We're going to use money that we have set aside to do those over the course of the next five years, 10 years, I think. 10
005little um but there are some really major items um including a massive renovation of Washington school. Um uh some repairs needed to be made to that glass walkway that goes between Schuler and the middle school and um and we have a plan to sort of widen it which will also solve some other problems that we're having there. Uh we want to improve our security entrances. We've been I think ever since you came actually security has been a major focus for us to try to think about security in all of our buildings and um uh and then Schuler the bathrooms are really apparently pretty bad and there's just some ongoing plumbing problems and doing big projects like that. Um it just it feels hard when you have some sort of really major things. We can't really
006pay for the changes we have to make to a building um over the court. We can't make it peace meal. We kind of have to do it all at once. And so, um, what we're doing is we are asking, uh, the community to support the school district, um, by, uh, us putting this this bond, uh, proposal onto the fall, uh, ballot. So, um, at this point, the board needs to vote on the specific language that would be happening with that bond, right, Lisa? And we had to do this at a special meeting because of timing. like we're basically this is sort of like we have to do it today to make sure that it gets onto the bond for November 4th >> and we had to get the petitions in order to do that >>
007right we really were we were constrained on both ends and so this really was the day we needed to do it so I thank the board for um for coming out and being available and Jenny making yourself available by phone uh for us to be able to do this so uh would the board like to make any further comment or questions on this um and otherwise someone's free to make a motion I move we uh approve the resolution ordering the election of the issuance of $22.5 million in a general obligation school bond. >> I'll second. >> Okay. Josh, >> yes. >> Laura, >> yes. Christie, >> yes. >> Jody, >> yes. >> Jenny, >> yes. >> Okay. Our second item um is regarding this one's a little bit more complicated to explain. Um what what
008when the board was looking at the master plan proposal, one of the other major components of it was an athletic facility that would stand alone. Um we had sort of considered whether we could do expansion on the high school and that was not going to be the best option. We're trying to really get as much athletic facility for the money that we possibly could. And um this concept of of adding a structure I I don't know if it's not technically a building because it's connected to our building. So um and adding it onto the west side of the high school on that um that sort of flat property that we have over there um is was sort of the most efficient. I should have you guys, you know, you've spent a little more time on
009it, but uh that was the most uh efficient and effective way for us to get as much as much bang for the buck that we could do to sort of meet some long-term um uh educational and extracurricular needs that we've had. So, um, in order to try to keep the amount of that general obligation bond that's going to be on the November ballot, to try to keep that that, uh, poverty tax impact low, um, we decided to separate out the athletic facility from the all the other projects. And we were able to for because of the the cost of that athletic facility which was going to be around I think we were talking around 16 million um maybe somewhat more. We left some overage in there um that we would be able to borrow against
010the the school district's anticipated revenue that comes in from the 1 cent sales tax. And so all of those 1-centent sales taxes across the state get all consolidated in De Moines. and then get redistributed based on based on the size of our district number based on the population of the city. Uh and so that's money that's coming in. It's about um 1.8 million plus per year and uh we have been spending some of that money. Am I right Lisa? We've been spending it to pay off the debt that was from the Trojan Bowl and the other um changes to Oh, not middle school. It was It was the middle school renovation that was done prior to the fire. >> That's what it was. Thank you. The middle school renovation done prior to the fire, which
011we then had to redo some of it after the fire, but that came through insurance money. Right. So, we're still paying we're still paying off that debt that we had um using these this save money this and I don't remember does any sab >> secure and advanced vision for education. secure and advanced vision for education is why it's called save money. And so, um, so we now we're going to have that that much money that is coming into the district. And we certainly could spend it on again on small projects as we go along, but it's not enough not enough money comes in in a given year for us to be able to spend it on a large project like this. And so what districts are able to do, very common practice across government, is
012to take that anticipated revenue and go out and take a loan on the expectation that that money will be coming in and we're going to use we're going to dedicate some of that money toward paying back this loan. So um so that was what the board voted to do. Uh we did have some um some uh citizens who were who wanted the opportunity to vote on this particular use of that save penny tax money. Um and so signed a petition um asking the board to uh put this put put that particular issue onto the November ballot. Am I saying that right? So at this point what the board has the option to do we need to um we we listen to we respond to that petition that's come in which was legally filed and legally
013filled and um so then what we need to do in response to that is either we withdraw the the decision that we had made or we go ahead and we respond to the petition and say sure we'll put it on the ballot and we will let people vote on um whether whe they whether the the electorate, the people who show up on November 4th or send in absentee ballots, whether they want the save money to be spent in that way. Am I I'm saying that all right? Okay, good. Thanks you guys. So, Lisa, I know you were getting some like legal guidance on how exactly we need to do this. Are these going to be two separate motions or is it like a pick one or >> um So, so yeah. So, you are voting
014on whether you want to resend the resolution that was done August 27th that um said that you would use the funds in the way that you described or you can call for an election um for that those same dollars. Can I clarify? It's just a question that occurred to me and I I'm fairly certain I know the answer, but I don't want to make that assumption. Um because we had some distinctions about the general obligation bonds. If the public votes positively for that, we are obligated to spend that money in that manner. Um the difference was with our resolution authorizing the potential issuance of bonds, we didn't necessarily have to do that. We're just authorizing those funds to be issued for that specific use. If we put this on the ballot and the public passes
015it, does that change the nature of that language or is it still with our intent so it doesn't become an obligation that we have to issue that amount of bonds? >> That's you you can >> I I'm thinking of that correctly. It's still it maintains the integrity of what we originally authorized. Yes. >> Okay. >> And so if the public votes for it, then they're saying that um the board has the authority to be able to borrow against the safe for that particular purpose >> in that amount. But it doesn't mean that you issue 18 and a half or we have to >> and it doesn't have to even go for field house. >> Yeah. >> You can have another public hearing and say we're building library. >> Okay. >> Right. So you you are
016just >> Oh, let's not confuse. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> You are Yes. >> Okay. >> But probably I would say the electric and figured that you know we had already spent a lot of time figuring out this project. had a lot of conversations um about wanting to about how important this was to us and how important it was to our students and to the future of the district and community and decided that it was and that this was the right time for us to be building it. um that you know there's various forces at play that and prices of of construction always almost almost always go up and so this is a good time for us to push that through is the decision that had been made >> and really I think that we felt
017strongly about the the projects that we prioritize the importance of all of them and we're looking at them kind of in total how can we get these projects funded >> with minimal impact to the property taxpayer Yeah. So, and people who are hearing of this for the first time, I'm amazed that you are. Uh, but we do have a website that you're able to find out more about it. Um, so I guess at this point, so we just only need Well, I guess I'm going to invite the board to have some discussion um or or explanation or you know, ask any other questions you have before um someone will need to make a resolution um either to resend the plan that we had already made or um to or a resolution to put that um
018that save uh usage that res that what's it called? It was I guess it's the resolution we made onto that ballot. So >> So you can make a motion second and then have discussion and then Yeah. >> Unless anyone has any questions, but >> Jenny, do you I want to make sure I don't forget you. >> No, I'm good. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> I'll take a motion then. I'll move for resolution ordering an election on the issuance of approximately 18.5 million school infrastructure sales, services, and use tax revenue bonds. >> Sure. >> Okay. You want to have discussion before we vote or you want to Yeah. Is there anybody who would like to discuss it before we did this? >> Well, I would give it an opportunity for questions, but I certainly would
019welcome if you wanted to say why you chose to make that motion rather than another. I think that we have showed that is uh what we feel is uh needed um to move forward. We've done lots of research and I think that's what we owe the constituents and they can vote on it. >> I agree. I obviously I don't think there's any secrets as to what side I'm on, but I'm one person and and you know Kudos to Justin and his crew. They did what >> they can legally do. And we'll get to the end of it. I guess we'll let the public uh you know, we're only five people and uh it's that's part of the whatever you want to call it, the process, the government process, and and uh we'll get to it.
020And uh so let's let's vote it, see what happens. And in fact, I'll say that, you know, even that that this outcome was something that we had talked about as being a possibility. When we were talking about that there were some people who felt like they weren't interested in us uh spending anything else on athletic facilities, we were kind of like, let's revisit this. Let's talk it all through. Let's look at our numbers. And we felt like we still felt like we needed to do it. But we said, but if people feel really strongly, they still have an option. They have the the ability to petition and the ability for us to put it onto the ballot. So this was, you know, this in my mind it's one of the things the board talked about
021as as being an outcome. So >> I I feel strongly um the project has merit. I think it can stand on its own own feet. I hope you know the public sees the need because we certainly have seen the need um certainly over the last 10 years and I would say probably even longer. You know I talked to a previous board member and he said we needed it when I was on board. So >> Okay. All right. Um, Jenny, did you have anything else? >> Um, I think, um, I feel like we talked this over at length and made our decision back when we decided to just go with the save funds and I'm good with putting it on the ballot and letting the public decide. >> Take it over. Christy, >> yes. >> Jody,
022yes. Jenny, >> yes. >> Josh, >> yes. Laura. >> Yes. >> Thank you everyone. I appreciate everybody who's in attendance in person um or watching us and um for your interest and um just thank you for supporting our schools and our students. Really appreciate it. I'll take a motion to adjourn. >> I move second. >> All in favor? >> I thank you. >> Bye Jenny. Bye Jenny. Jenny.