Goldfield may take ownership of old school building

What to do with the old Goldfield school building?

This question has been frequently pondered by the Clarion-Goldfield-Dows school board over the last few years. Though the district uses the building’s gymnasium for athletic practices and can rent the community room to outside groups for income, overall, the building has a greater cost to maintain than it’s worth to the district. And while the building is something of a community center for the City of Goldfield, schools are only supposed to hold property for educational purposes.

The solution Dr. Bob Olson, superintendent, posed to the school board Monday night was to give the building to the City. The City can then choose to go into negotiations with a developer to turn the old classrooms into needed apartments, while keeping the gym and community room to rent or lease to interested groups.

Currently, the C-G-D district spends about $50,000 a year to maintain the building. Olson said that leasing the gym for those practices will be less expensive than full building maintenance costs.

“That [$50,000 cost] will go away, and when we lease it, we will use the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, which is savings to the general fund,” Olson said.

The school board agreed to the resolution to transfer ownership of the building to the city. However, a public hearing must be held before the transfer can happen. The hearing is scheduled for July 17 at the next regular board meeting. After the hearing, the board will give the final vote.

Note: The print edition of this article stated that the hearing would take place on June 29 at 5 p.m. The meeting was rescheduled for July 17 after the paper went to print.