So we lease them for a dollar...

Last night was the CCO forum for the 4th In-District candidates. It was sponsored by Visitation Parish and Second Presbyterian Church. As you draw closer to the election date, there are fewer and fewer undecided voters in the audience. Even the voters that say they're undecided are usually leaning towards a candidate. All the questions revolved around education, affordable housing and health care. Admittedly being the finance/technical/process candidate I knew I was at a disadvantage. Still, I had one answer that I felt was my home run. In business, you always want to direct a topic towards your strength. I bided my time and waited for my pitch. The question finally came. What would you do about all the empty school buildings in the 4th District? The general feeling from the group seemed to be the buildings should be kept in reserve in case the KCMSD ever gets its act together and public school enrollment starts to climb. The answer seemed elementary (grin) to me. I broke the issue down into wants and needs. The KCMSD wants to keep these buildings in reserve, but they need to maintain them because as I pointed out, a vacant building without utilities deteriorates rapidly. Next I brought up the fact that the City and even the County frequently need office space. In fact, we had recently moved the 3-1-1 Action Center into temporary space. We settled on some pretty pricey digs in the Oak Tower downtown. The City needs to find quality, affordable facilities. My proposal was simply this. The KCMSD will lease its buildings to government tenants for $1/year. Most commercial leases are what's known as "triple net" which means the tenant pays all the taxes (Net), insurance (Net) and maintenance expenses (Net) on the property. That usually includes structural repairs like roofs and windows also. I figure this could be a win-win. The City gets cheap office space. The KCMSD gets their vacant buildings maintained by a reputable tenant, and the buildings remain intact and operational in case they are ever needed to be put back in service. There were a few people that thought it was a pretty good idea. I think I may have even earned a few of the truly undecided votes. As for the rest? Hopefully I gave them something to think about!