Navigation

Board Buying Back Cherry School

The county is considering buying back this piece of property that it sold in 1985 for $35,000, with the option to buy it back for $38,000 if it ever went up for sale again. The Door County Child Care Center closed its doors in December.

In 1985 the Door County Board of Supervisors sold a piece of county-owned land that included the former Cherry School at the corner of County BB and Cherry Road in the Town of Sevastopol for $35,000 to Door County Child Care Center, with the stipulation to have first option to buy the property back for $38,000 plus the cost of whatever improvements were made should it ever go up for sale.

When Door County Child Care went out of business and closed its doors on Dec. 23, the county was notified and sent the information to the Property Committee, which recommended the county pass on buying the property back.

But at its Jan. 27 meeting, Property Committee member Richard Haines said he had changed his mind.

“I think it would be good for county to own it,” he said, adding, “not sure what we do with it.”

Interim Administrator/Corporation Counsel Grant Thomas said the owners had not made improvements, so the cost would be $38,000, and that the county had 60 days from the Dec. 19 notice to exercise the option to buy, and then another 30 days to pay for the building.

Board Chair Dan Austad said the property certainly exceeds $38,000 in value.

“I don’t think it’s a function of the county board to flip property to make money. That’s not one of our functions,” said Supervisor Richard Virlee. “At this point I can’t support it. You don’t have a good use for it.”

Haines said that is not why he changed his mind. “I’m not interested in flipping it. Make a park there or something,” he said.

David Lienau, who chairs the Finance Committee, pointed out that his committee flips property all the time. “We do it several times a year, for profit.”

Supervisor Dave Enigl said the current board should respect the wisdom of the 1985 county board. “I see this happen too often,” he said. “The board at that time saw fit to do this for the future board. It was a very intelligent county board at the time.”

The board voted 11-4 to exercise the option to buy the building (six members were absent).

In other matters:

• On the recommendation of the Finance Committee, the board voted 14-1 to take $1.248 million from the county’s unassigned fund balance to pay for the first year of a three-year fiber optic project. That brings the county’s unassigned fund balance down to 14 percent. State statute requires counties to have at least 12 percent in its unassigned fund balance.

“This is alarming,” said Richard Virlee. “This amount is a lot and it really raises eyebrows when you transfer this much out of your fund.”

“This is the first time I can remember that we did below the 15 percent,” said Chairman Austad. “We have to be careful to watch it now.”

Supervisor Ken Fisher said he is not against the project, but he thought the county should borrow to pay for the first installment of the project. “This is putting our backs against the wall,” he said. His was the sole vote against the transfer of funds.

• Interim Administrator Thomas gave an update on the search for a new county administrator. He said the search will be national and that two separate groups will be formed to interview candidates. One will be made up of elected county board supervisors and members of the community who have expertise in hiring executives, and the second will be comprised of both appointed and elected department heads. While the county board will have the final decision on who is hired, Thomas said the stakeholder group is being brought in as a second set of eyes as those who will have to develop positive relationships with whomever is hired. The Administrative Committee has been charged with coming up with a final set of details for the recruitment and selection process to bring to the county board at its next meeting on Feb. 24.

• Unanimously approved a transfer of $15,000 from the unassigned fund balance for the Door County Fair. Supervisor Fisher has been shepherding that idea for the fair, and he said this was not meant to be a one-time grant, but that the fair has been running in the red to the tune of about $15,000 annually, which amounts to about what the fair pays for various county services, including police services, Highway Department work and utilities. “We want to stem that,” Fisher said. “They have reserve money, but that’s been depleted,” said Supervisor Virlee. “A couple of nights of rain at the fair, they’d be broke.” Chairman Austad said this would be a one-time grant, but the fair deficit can be brought up at county budget time.