The on-going dispute between the Village of Sturtevant and Racine Unified over the proposed move of a charter school into the SportsPlex in the Renaissance Business Park in the village could delay the school's opening past fall, according to a RUSD official.
District Chief Operating Officer Dave Hazen issued a news release late Friday, seeming to signal that the disagreement is growing rather than narrowing. "This is so disappointing," Hazen said in the release. "This delay likely means our students won't have access to manufacturing and engineering courses next fall and will disrupt at minimum the first semester of programming for more than 500 students eagerly awaiting this opportunity," he said.
The district thought it had found a new home for the REAL School---Racine Engineering, Arts and Leadership School--when it struck a deal to buy the SportsPlex. The district planned to turn part of it into classrooms and rent out the rest to athletic groups and other entities as a way of partially offsetting the purchase price. Another advantage is the building's proximity to Gateway Technical College's iMET Center, where many REAL School students would spend part of their day.
Sturtevant, however, demanded that the district pay $35,000 annually to offset the cost of municipal services. Noting that the SportsPlex was Sturtevant's 13th largest taxpayer and that part of the building would continue to be operated as a revenue producer, village board members felt they were within their purview to make the demand.
The board also laid out some conditions, a list that Hazen said continues to grow.
The demands, according to Hazen, include forbidding sophomores and students in younger grades from leaving campus for lunch, requiring special authorization from the village if any event was expected to go past 10 p.m. and giving the village the option of renegotiating the conditional use permit if building use policies change. "Many of the demands are within statutory authority of the RUSD School Board and District administration, not the Village of Sturtevant," says Hazen.
Village President Steve Jansen said he's willing to continue negotiations and doesn't want to delay the school's opening. "The last thing I want to do is hold them up," he says.
Jansen says village board members are in lock-step on the issue. (One member, Michelle Duchow, has recused herself from the debate because she also sits on the school board.)
The next village plan commission meeting is Apr 13th, well past the Apr. 1st deadline that the school district set in order to finish construction before the start of the new school year.
Jansen said the village is willing to call whatever special meetings are necessary in order to resolve the issues. The Racine School Board is scheduled to meet in executive session to discuss the matter Monday night.
The outlying areas of the school district---Sturtevant, Mt. Pleasant and Caledonia--have long sought to have additional RUSD facilities located in their neighborhoods. When it agreed to buy the SportsPlex, school officials thought they were going to be welcomed with open arms. The enthusiasm waned once discussions began over the conditional use permit.
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