Keys schools give up the rest of historic Glynn Archer School in Key West

The Monroe County School Board this week unanimously handed over the rest of its part of the Glynn Archer School property to the city of Key West, which is finishing a new $19 million City Hall at 1300 White St. in a transformation of the building.

Key West will pay the board $10 for the gym and locker room building behind the school.

The board’s vote in Marathon on Tuesday seals a deal city leaders brokered as a way to give the Boys and Girls Club’s childcare program a permanent home at Bayview Park, where the city will spend at least $500,000 on a building renovation.

In exchange, the School Board will get back use of the Reynolds School, where the kids program had been located, and give the city the rest of Glynn Archer School.

After gifting the 1920s-era school to the city in 2013, the board had held onto the gym and locker room buildings behind the main building at 1300 White St. The city will let the board have office space in the finished City Hall and access to the meeting hall.

Davidson questions $6,342 board trip

Outgoing board member Ed Davidson, who lost the District 3 seat Aug. 30 to Mindy Conn, questioned the board’s plans to spent $6,342 for six members and Superintendent Mark Porter to attend a statewide conference in Tampa this winter.

“To register is $325,” Davidson said Tuesday, pulling the travel proposal off the consent agenda. “Hotel rooms are $183 at four nights. That’s $6,342 and that’s if nobody files travel expenses for meals. It’s nice to let the taxpayers know what this costs.”

Davidson said it’s a waste for them to attend the 71st annual Joint Conference and Board of Directors’ Meeting of the Florida State School Boards Association, Nov. 29-Dec 2 at the Grand Hyatt Tampa Bay in Tampa, since the state’s Sunshine Law prevents them from talking about most issues outside of a public meeting.

“It’s not the first time ever, they did it 10 years ago,” Chairman Andy Griffiths said, of the trip. “It was a frequent occurrence.”

The item passed 4-1 with Davidson dissenting.

Auditoriums to cost $1.1 to $3M

Updating the auditoriums at the three main high schools in the Keys will cost at least $1.1 million and a whopping $7.3 million to make them “ideal,” or state-of-the-art, according to a consultant’s report.

The $1.1 million would bring the three auditoriums’ lighting and sound systems up to snuff but the “desired” improvements on all campuses would total more than $3 million, wrote Anston-Greenlees, Inc. Mechanical & Electrical Consulting Engineers.

“I would try to stay in the ‘desired’ [category],” said John Dick, the board’s vice chairman.

“This is four to eight times what we were told to expect,” said Davidson, whose term is up in November.

“It’s 10-year-old equipment, it’s old,” said Pat Lefere, the district’s executive director of Operations and Planning. “We’re going from analog to digital.”

“These are capital funds,” Porter reminded the board, meaning the money doesn’t come from operating expenses.

The board meets next Oct. 11 in Key West at 241 Trumbo Road, starting with a 3 p.m. workshop before a 5 p.m. meeting.

This story was originally published September 30, 2016 at 12:56 PM with the headline "Keys schools give up the rest of historic Glynn Archer School in Key West."