In just a few days, students will stream into the newly built high school for their first day of classes, and the old building on Seventh Street will be officially retired. Unfortunately, what happens to it next probably may not be what most voters intended.
When the citizens of Montezuma-Cortez School District Re-1 were being urged to pass a bond to build the new high school, they were led to believe that the existing building was fast becoming unfit for occupancy. Bond tours highlighted its problems. The money necessary to renovate it to current building codes and instructional standards could be better spent on new construction, voters were told, and that made sense, especially with millions of dollars in Building Excellent Schools Today funding to match what the community would need to pay. The public was assured that the plan included funds to demolish the old building if no one stepped forward to buy it. The district was not going to hold onto it; that just did not make sense.
It still does not, yet no prospective buyers have appeared, and now — because of the high cost of removing and disposing of asbestos — the district does not have the money to tear down the building.
The asbestos was not a surprise; it was a frequent topic of discussion during the bond effort. The old high school was constructed in the 1960s, well within the memory of many people in Cortez. Construction standards and materials from that era are no mystery. Testing is available. Determining the cost of demolition should be well within the capabilities of an educational institution. Whoever thought that building could be torn down for $150,000?
Yes, it would be nice if the old high school could be used for classes, performances, conventions, whatever, but that is not feasible. The building is not structured to be rented out in pieces — a plan that would also require maintenance, heat, supervision and other expenses — and any remodeling plan runs right into the issue of asbestos. Nor is Re-1 itself structured to be a landlord to such a scheme. The district itself does not need to utilize any of the space; after all, the plan was for demolition.
And yes, it would be good if the costs of demolition instead could be poured into teacher salaries or other educational programs.
But none of that makes the problem go away; it just postpones the day of reckoning. The fact is that the district owns the asbestos problem now and is very likely to own it when the building eventually is demolished, at a time when the cost of abatement is even higher. The cost is not going to go away, and no one foresees a future in which the school district has an “extra” $1.5 million.
The issue is not that the school district or the bond committee “promised” that the old high school would be demolished, but that a huge, mostly empty building that contains both asbestos and mercury, located in the middle of a residential neighborhood, will not be a good thing for anyone. Without constant surveillance and maintenance, broken windows and graffiti will accumulate quickly, and before long, the building will look like the M&M Truck Stop on a much larger scale. The “uses” of unoccupied buildings are legendary, and the district definitely should not host them.
Re-1 must figure out how to get rid of the old high school once and for all. The city of Cortez should be as helpful as possible but should not back away from its agreement that the building must be demolished.
