APSB maintains current schedule for Bunkie Magnet auditorium construction

After some heated words over a proposal to delay the start of construction of the Bunkie Magnet High School auditorium, an Avoyelles School Board committee decided it best to proceed with the project as scheduled. The project was cited by a federal judge as being key to the public school district being declared “unitary” and ending a 50-year-old desegregation case.

Building & Lands Committee Chairman Mike Lacombe put a proposal on the committee’s Dec. 12 agenda seeking to delay the $650,000 project to its original start date in 2019.

“The school system has cut $3.7 million from the General Fund budget and needs to cut another $1.5 to $1.7 million,” Lacombe said. “If the Red River Charter School becomes a reality, it will hit our budget another $1 million. I just think it would be good to delay the project.”

Bunkie School Board member Lizzie Ned, who represents the Bunkie area, waited until Lacombe finished his comments and then blasted him for putting the item on the agenda.

“Shame on you for putting this on the agenda,” Ned shouted at Lacombe. “You always want to put this project on the back burner even though the (federal) judge said do it. I’m dissatisfied.”

Board member Shelia Blackman-Dupas said the U.S. District Court’s monitor for the desegregation case praised the School Board at its Dec. 4 meeting for continuing the construction project and starting it earlier than planned.

NOT A DELAY

Lacombe, whose Cottonport district is also in Bunkie High’s attendance zone, responded that his proposal was not really a delay, but merely to move the project back to its original schedule under the 10-year plan for capital improvements in the school system.

District Attorney Charles Riddle said U.S. District Judge Dee Drell has been told of the board’s decision to move the project from 2019 to 2018.

He said the money for the project does not affect the board’s General Fund and comes from separate fund established to pay for the approved capital improvement projects.

“The School Board is at a critical point in its desegregation case,” desegregation suit plaintiff Allen Holmes said. “If the board goes back on what they said they would do, you would be against a federal court order.

“You need to leave alone what the court has ordered,” he continued. “It will be a whole new ball game to go back to court because you would be in violation of the judge’s order.”

Holmes said when the motion to end the monitoring period for the desegregation case is filed on June 1, all parties to the suit will have 60 days to file comments.

If the project is delayed, Holmes promised to tell the federal judge the School Board cannot be “trusted” because of its decision to go back on its promise to start the auditorium project in 2018.

“Please do not go down this route,” Holmes told the board.

When a question was raised as to whether the last federal court order included the earlier start date for the auditorium construction, Riddle said only that the judge had asked that the auditorium be built sooner than originally scheduled.

If the board moved the construction project back to 2019, Riddle said he would be concerned based on Drell’s past comments on the matter.

JEOPARDIZE CASE

“It might jeopardize the completion of the desegregation case,” Riddle said, adding he wants to show Drell that bids have been received on the project by the time the motion to dismiss is filed on June 1.

Maintenance Supervisor Steve Marcotte said plans have been finalized and the board could advertise for bids in January.

“The more we delay the project, the more it will cost,” Marcotte said. “Construction costs go up about $40,000 a year. That was one of the reasons we wanted to move the project up on the 10-year plan.”

The committee chose not to change the project’s schedule and to recommend advertising for bids in January. Bids would likely be received in late January and a contract could be awarded in February.