Guest commentary: Discussion to approve sale of South Beaver School to NAU set for March 11

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By Ricardo Guthrie

Dear All:

The AZ Board of Regents will be meeting at NAU … (on Wednesday, March 11), and Item #9 on the Executive Session Agenda is a vote to approve NAU’s request to purchase the South Beaver School building and land for $2.75 million.  (see attached agenda and exec. summary).

Currently NAU leases South Beaver School from Flag Unified School District, for about $20,000 per month, or $240,000 per year, to house the Program in Intensive English (PIE).

The funds to purchase South Beaver would come from “NAU local reserves”, and the “closing” for the sale would be August, 2015.

A couple things come to mind:

*In general, it is not a good idea for a university to gobble up land and take over historic building sites that are contiguous to campus land–particularly when university growth and community control are at issue–thus, this is NOT about FUSD “balancing its budget”, nor is it about NAU making good on its promise to the Bd of Regents to house 25,000 students on campus by 2020. It is not part of NAU’s 2010 “Master Plan” to take over South Beaver School, nor is there a community-campus usage agreement for South Beaver (as far as i know)…

But, there should be!  More questions:

*Why are NAU “Reserves” being used in this way, when “SBS West” (the old Business School Building) is a condemned building sorely in need of demolition and replacement?
*Why is $2.75 million in “reserves” being offered up to FUSD at this time, when $100 million cuts are planned by the AZ Legislature? (NAU’s cuts could amount to $13-18 million.)
*Why isn’t there an agreement currently being promoted and expressed between NAU, FUSD, Neighborhood Associations, City of Flagstaff or Coconino County about the long-term investment and use of South Beaver School?
*What’s the plan for preserving the South Beaver School Building as a historic site, or perhaps “re-purposing” it as a Lab School for College of Ed, or PIE expansion, or “another parking garage…..”?

We should not oppose the continued good use of South Beaver School, but we should be alarmed that NAU’s good neighbor policy might be jeopardized by campus expansion and purchase of community assets such as the South Beaver School without benefit of community discussion–is this a “sustainable community” practice? Is this the way it’s supposed to work?

I don’t know if FUSD has already agreed to sell South Beaver, or if there has been any discussion by School Committee members, but I’d welcome any thoughts and consideration by you-all about this upcoming “vote”.