Schools, vision and audiotape

My Sunday column apparently did not win me fans on the Cedar Rapids School Board.

Board President John Laverty, in particular, during Monday's board meeting, seemed unhappy with what I wrote about the district's July land buy on the city's west edge. Parents and neighborhood leaders I've talked with believe the purchase will have a bearing on the potential closing of elementary schools in the city's core.

Laverty clearly disagreed. He also noted that a “reporter” had asked to listen to a tape of an April closed session on that land deal, and he hoped for a factual account. It was my request. I asked to listen last week but was told I had to wait until this week. On Wednesday, I trooped to the district's trailer maze to hear 30 minutes of tape.

There is no smoking gun with a red-hot barrel. Nobody outlines a secret plan to shutter neighborhood schools and bus kids out west. Not that I expected it.

If you're a fan of real estate talk, this closed session is for you. Much of the time is filled by Scott Olson, commercial Realtor and district adviser, who is now on the City Council. Olson discusses three pieces of land for sale near the route of a planned Highway 100 loop from Edgewood Road to U.S. 30. Superintendent Dave Benson, who asked Olson to find parcels for sale, sees the highway corridor as the focal point for future growth.

“It is my experience from working in a growing district that the district should try to be out front and acquire itself some ground that I could easily see an elementary school and a middle school in the westernmost part of the district,” Benson explained.

Olson recommended a 37-acre field at the corner of Worcester Road and 80th Street NW. It's next to a county park, close to a planned Highway 100 interchange and has a nice southern exposure. Sewer and water lines are nearby and residential development is flowing toward it. Land is going fast. “There's some very nice houses out there, real beauties,” Olson said.

Asked how much land the district needs, Benson said 40 acres is perfect. “This will provide an excellent location for an elementary school, probably first, followed by a middle school,” Benson said. Board members agreed that negotiations should move ahead.

“I think this is good vision,” Laverty said.

So it's a long-range vision, not a secret plan. Got it.

But what I don't get is why that April vision would now have no bearing on how Benson and the board shape the facilities decisions they're about to make, impacting the district for decades to come. If it was the right call, the right vision, then stand up for it now.

Maybe you won't win fans, but believe me, I know you'll get over it.