District considers sale of Med Bow property

The Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) Board of Trustees spent part of their October 19 meeting again discussing property in Medicine Bow that is leased to MedBow Lodging LLC. As the end of the calendar year approaches, so too does the end of the lease, which expires on December 31.

Discussion of the lease and the property was placed on the agenda by CCSD2 Superintendent Jim Copeland.

“This is just a reminder so it doesn’t sneak up right at the very end but their lease runs out December 31. So, basically, (I) just wanted to kind of get some input from the board. Is the board thinking that they want to continue to lease this property, is this something they want to consider selling, or just what our intentions are,” said Copeland.

As was reported previously (see “CCSD2 sticks with MedBow Lodging on page 2 of the May 24 Saratoga Sun), the Board of Trustees had approved the extension of a lease with MedBow Lodging until the end of the calendar year. This extension came following a letter from the company that stated they were not interested in extending the lease, which had an original expiration date of May 9 (see “School district left with a ‘lot’ of questions” on page 14 of the April 22 Saratoga Sun).

“If you want to sell it, there would probably have to be some preparation on how that’s going to work and how that’s going to look. I put that on here now, basically, to give us enough time to figure out where we’re going with this so we’ll have something by the end of the year,” Copeland said. “If we are planning to sell it, I’ll need to get with (legal counsel) Bill (MacPherson) and we’ll need to figure out how that process is supposed to look.” 

As the board began to discuss the property, CCSD2 Board of Trustees member Charlie George raised the question if the district was competing with the private sector since the leased property was being used as an RV park. Board member Mike Boardman stated that he was in favor of continuing to lease the property, stating that it was an asset to the district.

“It is an asset but, at the end of the day, it’s not our business. At some point, I would be in favor of selling the property because we’re not in the landlord business long term,” said CCSD2 Board of Trustees Chairman James Sewell. “It’s great that we’re getting some revenue as we’re talking about budget shortfalls but, through time, something may happen.”

Regardless of whether they district were to extend the lease or sell it, it appeared that they would need to go before the School Facilities Commission. According to MacPherson, he had approached the commission more than a year ago about the 19 acre property and it was eventually determined that state statute regarding closed or surplus buildings applied to the property as well. Copeland clarified that the commission had stated the property would need to be listed in the district’s facilities plan as a lease.

“On a sale, there’s no specific state statute that requires us to sell it this way or that way. You do have to obtain school facilities’ approval. I think there’s a general obligation, anytime you’re a governmental entity, to make sure that you can tell your constituents that you got the best price possible,” said MacPherson. “I think, at the end of the day, you need to be able to say ‘Here’s how we did it and here’s how we assured ourselves that we were able to sell it for the best price’.”

Copeland reminded the Board of Trustees that Viridis Eolia had asked about purchasing the property earlier in the year. As was reported previously (see “Viridis Eolia asks about land lease” on page 16 of the March 4 Saratoga Sun), a representative for the Venezuelan-based company had expressed interest on behalf of the wind energy company which also owns the old Medicine Bow High School. When the Board of Trustees had discussed what to do with the property earlier in the year, several board members had expressed hesitancy to selling the property to the company.

“I think the best thing would be just to sell it. We keep bringing this up every so often. I just don’t feel like it’s in our best interest to have that property and keep evaluating this. We have better things to do,” said Kassie Westring, Board of Trustees member. “It seems like now would be the perfect time to sell it. I don’t know if the current lessees, MedBow Lodging, if they would be open to purchasing it.”

While MacPherson expressed concern that the lease could expire while awaiting approval from the School Facilities Commission, Sewell replied that the district could inform MedBow Lodging of their intent to sell the property and see if the company was interested in a month-to-month lease.

A motion to allow Copeland to move forward with selling the property passed unanimously.

The next meeting of the Carbon County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees will be at 5 p.m. on November 16 at the Central Office in Saratoga.