School Board wants to donate Zimmerly to city

The Socorro school board approved the donation of the Zimmerly Elementary building to the City of Socorro on Monday.

Rhiannon Crespin, finance director, explained with the approval from the school board a request will be submitted and presented to the state board of finance.

“They (state board of finance) get to make the ultimate decision on whether or not they’ll accept it, or if they would like us to make changes, or if they just want to scrap it all together.” Crespin said “If they don’t like the donation agreement to the city, they might require us to auction off the building, or accept sealed bids on the building first as a step before moving to donation to see if there would be any other interest where we would recoup part of the cost that went into the construction.”

Aubrey Tucker, interim superintendent, said during the presentation to the state board of finance, “We will explain all those aspects and nuances of why, when, where and how it could help the city and what we’re doing.”

Sharon Sessions, board member, asked if they could also include a memorandum of understanding to include that the city would continue to provide services such as emergency medical services, law enforcement support and the use of the rodeo complex.

Tucker said that after the State Board of Finance approves the board can negotiate those items with the City of Socorro.

Crespin reported that last year the district spent about $84,000 on utilities for the Zimmerly building, not including insurance.

David Hicks, board president said that the public has been asking him why the school would give the building away.

“Well, my answer to that is, is pretty simple. Number one, we get it off our books, to move things. But number two, in regards of why we’re not setting a price tag on it, is that every one of us in this room has already paid for that building. We’ve all paid for it. All of us have paid for it. If we sell it to the city, guess what? We pay for it again,” Hicks said.

He said the school board was presented with a proposal to demolish the building at one point and he would rather see it put to use.

“The city is in a position to where their police department is full of mold, run down and falling down around them. So they’re not in a position to where they can come to us as citizens and say, build us a new police station. So this is a win, win deal, in my opinion, for everybody. It does a good job for our police, which, of course, we all want and need, and then it’s going to help us in return, because they will help us with security for our schools. And they do.” Hicks said.

Hicks said the City of Socorro have been good partners allowing the school the free use of their facilities such as the soccer fields and gyms.

“I think this is a good decision for us as a community, not just as a school district.” Hicks said.

Tucker said he agreed and believed it would help the bonding capacity for the school district down the line. He was also concerned about having another empty building in Socorro.

“The Smiths building has been up for sale for quite a long time, and we don’t want the same thing to happen to that neighborhood with that building as well... the donation, it helps another municipality to move forward and doing something with that,” Tucker said. “Because there are some significant properties here that have remained empty for a substantial amount of time.”