Bunkie/APSB land swap gains support from community
Bunkie citizens, Avoyelles School District officials and four of the five aldermen believe a property swap of two city-owned ballparks for a former school gym and industrial arts building is a good idea. Mayor Bruce Coulon and Councilman Bob Longoria aren't yet convinced the move makes good fisca lsense for Bunkie.
A full house was on hand for the City Council meeting on June 11, with most attending to voice support for a proposal to give the Avoyelles School District the city's Johns Field and Richard Redmon Field in exchange for the former Carver High/BunkieMiddle gym and industrial arts building. The two most outspoken supporters of the land swap are council members Brenda Sampson and Travis Armand. Aldermen Greg Prudhomme and Lem Thomas have also endorsed the proposal.
Coulon and Longoria both said they would love to see the city operating community programs out of the former Carver High site. However, they both contend the move will cost more than supporters of the measure think it will, and Bunkie is not in a fiscal position to cover that expense.
City Engineer Brendan Gaspard, who works for Pan American Engineers, prepared a possible cost estimate needed to make the two school properties usable. That estimate of $1.5 million was challenged by Armand. Under questioning from Armand, Gaspard admitted he had not done an inspection of the buildings. His estimate included air conditioning, fencing the property and other work tha tArmand and other supporters contend does not have to be done immediately to put the buildings into useful service.
Armand claimed Coulon "tacked on" the extra work on the estimate "to increase the cost so as to demonstrate the proposed property swap is not feasible.
"He said the "numbers are hyper-inflated with a political spin placed on them by Mayor Coulon."
POSSIBILITIES AND IMPEDIMENTS
Armand told Coulon that while supporters of the property exchange see the possibilities of the proposal, "you see and contribute to the impediments.
"Our constituents hire us, as public servants, not to see things as they are and say, 'We can’t do anything about it and here’s why,'” Armand continued. "They don’t want us to go out of our way, wasting time, energy and money to tell them that our condition is bad and our prognosis grim.They know that already and most assuredly don’t need to be convinced any fur-ther."
"It’s impossible for me to understand why Marksville and Simmesport can get their historically black schools which were the hubs of the community and Bunkie cannot," Sampson said.
Marksville owns the former Mary Bethune High/Marksville Middle site, which is now the Bethune Community Center. Simmesport has a 99-year lease, paid with in-kind contributions, for the former Dunbar H i g h / S i m m e s p o r t Elementary site.
"We constantly talk about not having recreational opportunities for our community," Sampson continued. "When we get the chance to provide them, we have to fight to even get it on the agenda. That is sad."
Armand said Coulon had refused to allow the topic to be discussed at previous council meetings and "the only reason it was on the agenda tonight was because he thought the engineer's cost estimate would kill it. I think that plan backfired on him."
Sampson claimed the city owns more police cars than it has officers to drive them, but does not want to "put any effort into getting this much-needed facility for our community."
MORE TO IT
Coulon said there is more to turning the gym into a recreational center for area youth than turning on the electricity, opening the doora nd letting people in."
For this to occur, several steps must be taken," he said. "First, the city must have the two buildings and property appraised. Then a building inspector must be hired to make sure all state codes are met."
Since the June meeting, Coulon has appointed a committee "to help go forward with this project and see what the costs will be. After all of those steps are completed, city officials will have to determine if the city can afford the project.
"I would like for these buildings to be used by the citizens in our city," Coulon said, "but we cannot spend money we don't have in our budget. COVID-19 has cost our city a great deal of money due to the loss of sales tax and franchise revenue."
Longoria, who is no stranger to being the lone ranger on the council's property deals, said he believes it would be too expensive to repair and upgrade the buildings so they could be used for community programs. After that, he noted, the city would have to pay to maintain and operate the community programs, which would probably require an employee to oversee the site and its programs.
"We don't have the money to make it viable," Longoria said.
Even if the $1.5 million price tag includes more work than is necessary to get the buildings ready for use, Longoria said it "would take at least several hundred thousand dollars."
Longoria said he has an open mind on the issue.
"If they can prove me wrong, I'm all in favor of it," he added.
Coulon said he was using Marksville's work on the Bethune Center as a picture of what it might cost to put the school buildings back into use. He said the Bunkie buildings are in better con-dition. Bethune was renovated and repaired with mostly grant funds, but also required Marksville to provide local matching funds to share in the cost, which was over $1 million and took several years to complete.
MAIN STREET DONATION
Longoria said his objections to the "parks for buildings" proposal are the same as they were for the donation to the city of a vacant building on Main Street.
"I said then that we didn't have money to repair the building, even if it was given to us," Longoria said. "Some local citizens have spruced it up, but it is still unusable."
In that instance, the council voted 3-1 to accept the donation in February 2019. Prudhomme was absent from that meeting. Armand, Sampson and Thomas supported the mayor's recommendation to accept the donation.
Thomas almost immediately regretted his vote, saying a few days later that the building would be more of a burden than a blessing to the city. Armand said he now wishes he could take back the vote and cancel the donation "because the building was not viable and remains unusable even after a private individual selflessly paid to make improvements to the facade of the structure."
COMMUNITYSUPPORT
Sampson said the community has rallied behind the idea of the property swap. She said the city "does not have the funds to take care of the two ballfields. As it stands, the school system and Corn Festival use the fields exclusively, as I feel they should since they provide the funds to care for these fields."
Sampson said if the city cannot get the Carver gym, "our citizens must ask why does the city have facilities we cannot use. If a swap could occur, the only difference to what is happening now is that the city would get something it could take ownership of and something that could provide activities for our youth population."
Under the terms of an intergovernmental agreement, Johns and Redmon ballparks can only be used by a few organizations -- Bunkie Magnet, Bunkie Elementary, St. Anthony Catholic and the Corn Festival. Bunkie Elementary does not use the field at all and the Corn Festival occurs only a few days in June.
There have been complaints from community organizations in the past because they were denied the use of the city-owned ball-parks.
"I am personally invested in this endeavor since this school has personal meaning to me," Sampson said. "I spent 11 years at Carver High School, which produced a lot of successful graduates. At the time of integration, I had no say -- but I feel we lost something very valuable.
"We lost the name, the accomplishments, all the trophies," she continued. "Everything of value was, I assume, destroyed. This is a chance to give the community something it can call its own -- something that could not only be a source of pride, but something that could help decrease some of the negative effects of poverty and lack of recreational opportunities."