Wheels still spinning on new location

The San Marcos school board wants a new central office, but it doesn’t want to build it on shifting sands.

With trustee John McGlothlin seeking broader consensus and other trustees wanting to determine the fate of the district’s property on South LBJ Drive, the SMCISD board of trustees ended up voting 4-3 to table a decision on the site of a new administration building.

McGlothlin said that the board’s options for a new central office have changed drastically and often and he wants more definite information and more agreement among the trustees before deciding to spend $4.5 million. 

“This changes every week,” he said. “And there’s no hurry. Let’s make the best decision.”

In the past several months, McGlothlin said, the board was presented with an $8.5 million construction on district property at the corner of Suttles and Hunter Road, then a $4.5 million option at the Mendez Elementary Campus that was later determined to be over budget. Then the discussion shifted to a $4.5 million building on Suttles, where the majority of the board did not want to locate the central office building. Then, at the most recent agenda prep meeting, McGlothlin continued, the board saw new material showing that a new building could be constructed at the old site on South LBJ for $4.5 million “when previously the estimates had been much, much, much higher.”

Trustee Lupe Costilla asked McGlothlin what he was looking for and why postponing a vote would change anything.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take to continue or what circumstances we’re searching for,” she said. “Table it for what?”

McGlothlin said that it sounded like Monday night’s vote would be a 4-3 decision, and he did not want to make such a big decision with such a divided board if more information or more time for discussion would help lead to a consensus. 

“Every day we get new information,” he said. “... And there’s just no hurry.”

Trustee Anne Halsey voiced concerns for the future of the LBJ site, especially safeguards for Centro Cultural Hispano de San Marcos, which is located on district property adjacent to the old administration office. 

“For my vote to change, we do need to determine the future of both sites,” she said, adding that the district should determine what to do with the “gigantic pile of dirt” at the LBJ site and make commitments to those plans.

McGlothlin recommended selling the property on Suttles to help defray the costs of building a new central office at the old LBJ Drive site.

“To me, the Suttles property is a very uncomplicated sale,” he said. “If we had to sell one of those and build on the other … I would think we would build on LBJ and sell Suttles. That seems to be the most frugal use of taxpayer dollars.”

However, trustee Kathy Hansen pointed out that if the board wanted to sell a property for money, the LBJ site is worth more -- even though, she said, she did not think anyone on the board was willing to sell the LBJ site. 

Trustee Miguel Arredondo said that the only reason the board was able to discuss building a new central office without asking voters to approve a bond is that until the current administration, the district had taken money from employees and taxpayers to shelter a fund balance.

“More than anything, I wanted to thank the employees who suffered the brunt of that for the last 10 years,” he said.

Arredondo also pointed out that the district is growing to the east, and the Suttles location is in the western part of the district.

“At best, we’re going to get an additional elementary school off of Hunter Road and Ranch Road 12 in the La Cima neighborhood, but that’s it as far as the expansion of the district west of I-35,” he said.

The board voted on a motion Hansen made to build a new central office at the Suttles site and retain the LBJ site for future use. Hansen, Costilla and Margie Villalpando voted for that motion, while Clementine Cantu, Halsey, McGlothlin and Arredondo voted against it. McGlothlin then moved to table the decision, and the board approved that motion with Cantu, Halsey, McGlothlin and Arredondo voting in favor and Hansen, Costilla and Villalpando voting against it.