HOLYROOD — By the end of Monday’s 55-minute special meeting at Central Plains Elementary School in Holyrood, the Central Plains USD 112 board of education had rescinded a previous vote to sell the former Central Plains Middle School building for $1 to the City of Bushton and agreed to began looking at other options.

Superintendent Greg Clark said in the process of offering the building to the City of Bushton, he ran into questions regarding the 10-year lease-purchase agreement the district has with Wilson State Bank on the air conditioner, heater/boiler and the LED lighting.

Two payments have been made so far, with the principle payment being $89,000 and the interest payment being $15,000.

John Sherman, board attorney, presented the board with a short motion he drafted in case the board wanted to go into executive session for attorneyclient privilege to discuss existing legal obligations and liabilities resulting from that agreement.

The board approved a motion to do so.

Upon return from the 30-minute executive session, Sherman said there may be legal complications in just a simple sale of the building to the City of Bushton for $1, so the board may need to consider additional solutions or options to limit any liability or future issues regarding the lease-purchase agreement.

“Do we need to have the board make a motion to rescind the previous motion on selling that building,” asked Diane Ney, board clerk.

“It certainly would not be an effective motion, so it probably would not hurt to rescind it at this point,” Sherman said.“For the board to sell real estate it has to adopt a resolution to do that.”

“Before we do anything, we need to look at what the costs would be for the different options,” said board member Brad Schiermeyer.

Clark said he had a few rough numbers from Trane in Wichita. He said to move the air conditioning unit from Bushton to Holyrood and to move the air conditioning unit that is in Holyrood to Bushton would cost $27,250. To hook up the air conditioning unit from Holyrood into the building in Bushton would cost $5,000. To move the boilers would be $37,000.

Regarding the move of the air conditioner from Bushton to Holyrood, Clark said he is concerned that EMP controls are used at Holyrood.

“I feel like EMP has caused us a lot of issues,” he said. “But if we were so inclined, new Trane controls for this building would be right at around $100,000.”

Board member Jerry Bieberle said the options need to be presented to the Bushton City Council so members can decide whether that is something they want to consider.

“There is always the option of not selling it,” said board vice president Tony Zink.

Zink asked Sherman if the board decided not to sell the building, would an option exist to allow the community to expand its use of the building through leasing it from the district.

“I think there’s an option for public uses for certain,” Sherman said. “Private uses would need to be looked at a little closer to make sure it didn’t effect the tax-exempt status or anything like that.”

After the earlier motion was rescinded, Clark said he would research several options: the cost of moving the leased equipment; how the district could leave the equipment at the building in Bushton; not selling the building; the cost to the district for utilities and upkeep to have the building sit vacant for a year; and research information on the controls for the air conditioning.