R-3,
county partnership
apparently
is a dead issue
by Ivan
Foley
Landmark editor
It's over.
The long-discussed possible partnership on a community
center between the Platte County Commission and the Platte
County R-3 School District is dead, and Platte County
is now getting rolling with an alternative plan to build
a community center along Running Horse Road in Platte
City near the Oak Creek subdivision.
Officials on both sides were still reluctant to go into
much detail about why the school/county partnership didn't
work. County Commissioner Steve Wegner and R-3 Superintendent
Dr. Mark Harpst both said the two entities are expected
to issue a joint press release addressing the topic later
this week.
An arbitrary deadline of Sept. 30 to reach an agreement
had been set.
Sources have indicated there were a couple of concerns
from the county's end, one being the operational costs
for the type of swimming pool the school wanted in the
center.
Another major point of contention is that the school
wanted the county to commit approximately another $4 million
to the partnership several years down the road to build
a multi-purpose addition to the center that would include
a 2,000 seat fieldhouse. The school would have matched
that $4 million for an $8 million addition.
Sources said county commissioners weren't prepared to
make that "back end" financial commitment of
the county's park sales tax money.
"It's a pretty complicated issue," Harpst said
Tuesday night, saying he would prefer to wait to comment
until the joint press release is issued.
"It's not looking real positive," he added.
The county has plans to build a center on the roughly
five acre site on Running Horse Road. The center will
have a pool that will have annual operational costs of
about $40,000 less than the pool that would have gone
in a school/county partnership pool.
It's expected the county will design the center in a
way that expansion can be done if the center proves to
bring in profits above expectations.
The proposed joint center would have been constructed
near the school's main campus along Hwy. 92 in Platte
City. The county had offered around $6 million toward
the joint project, with that money coming from the half
cent sales tax for parks.
Early in negotiations, the school had indicated it wanted
an eight-lane swimming pool, a fitness center, an indoor
walking/running track, a regulation size practice gym
and six outdoor tennis courts as part of the joint center.
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