Athletic complex proposal at Tecumseh High School moves forward

By DEB WUETHRICH

 The Tecumseh School Board accepted a proposal from Foresite Design, Inc. on Monday night, authorizing the development of a contractual agreement for professional design and construction management services for an athletic complex to be located at Tecumseh High School. Board member Jason Sines opposed the resolution.

 “I just think that there are options still on the table,” Sines said following the meeting. “I’m just concerned that [with this vote] we are going in one direction.”

During a presentation outlining the proposal Wright pointed out that Bruce Lemons the owner of Foresite Design, is a landscape architect from Hudson and his niche is designing playgrounds and athletic fields. The proposal covered design and construction management for the proposed athletic complex to be located at the high school with the scope of the work to include the development of a new stadium, an eight-lane track, a synthetic turf field to accommodate football, soccer and lacrosse and grandstands with press box, sports/field lighting, fencing, walkways and an entry plaza. The total cost for the proposal is not expected to exceed $2,100,000, with funding for the project to come from the district capital projects fund, an installment purchase agreement, and from potential competitive grants and fundraising efforts.

Phase 1 would be for soil borings, a topographic survey and preliminary design drawings. Phase 2 would include construction documents and bidding. Phase 3 would be for construction administration, and Phase 4 for actual construction management. The district may have to adjust its plans not to provide a restroom until later. Due to Michigan codes requiring the restrooms with certain types of projects, Wright said specs were being developed. An actual contract with Foresite is yet to be approved by the school board.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Tecumseh resident Sue Ives posed a different scenario for utilizing the existing facility. “Rather than a north/south football field, how about running it east/west and moving the ball diamond out to the new facility. That’s a daytime sport and there would be no need for lights,” she said. “Keep it where it is and turn it 45 degrees with an eight-lane track. I say work with what we have. These are tough times for everybody. I would just rather that we really think about what can we do with the current facility and make it work.”

Board president Debbie Johnson-Burges urged the public to take advantage of the district’s website where further discussion, including questions and answers, about the athletic complex could be found at www.tps.k12.mi.us.

 Board members also weighed in on the sports complex discussion toward the end of the meeting. Gary Urban, said he has officiated high school sporting events over a 15 year period in the smallest and largest schools in Michigan.

“A common theme seems to be community pride when it comes to these facilities,” he said. Urban added that others have asked him why not do parts of the project given the current state of the economy; however, he believes it’s important to do the job right. “I just think, with my experience, that we need to do a complete job now and I think it will bring that sense of community pride and involvement,” he said. “Whatever we do, and whatever we end up with, I don’t want to keep having this discussion three years from now. I want this to be done and something we can be proud of in the community — a finished product and not keep coming back to it.”

Dan Gunder said the issue was more than the fact that the bleachers need to be replaced. “We’re significantly short in some sports venues,” he said. “We have 5, 6, 7 classes playing football at the field. We’re at a point where we need more facilities. It’s not just the case that it’s dilapidated. We need more facilities for our kids to play on.”

The Tecumseh Public School District’s general fund balance increased by $86,405 to $1,768,177, or 7.2 percent of expenditures as noted in an audit report accepted for the 2007-2008 fiscal year. Revenues totaled $26,043,602, with expenditures totaling $24,682,274. The Tecumseh School Board accepted a draft of the audit report at Monday night’s regular meeting. Rehmann Robson, the district’s auditing firm, gave an “unqualified (clean) opinion,” the highest rating given by auditing firms to public entities.
“At 7.2 percent, we’re at a slight increase over last year,” said Director of Business and Finance, Bill Wright. He said all funds ended with positive balances. “It was a challenging year but we got through it, and this year will probably be more so.” Wright credited building principals with staying within their budgets as one factor for being able to achieve the slight increase. While state officials like to see 10-15 percent fund balances, most districts are less in the current economy, Wright noted, with around 8 percent being the average for schools.

The audit listed a Capital Projects balance of $845,433. The district has committed to transfer $250,000 into this fund annually over the last couple of years and recently did so for the current budget year. Wright said those dollars would be used primarily for a proposed athletic complex.

The projected blended student count for this year was 3,190 with the actual coming in at 3,187.28. The foundation allowance came in at $7,316 per student and the Fiscal year-2009 budget was built on $7,304 per student, so a net gain of $23,539 in total revenue compared to budget projections was realized.

In other business the board members:
• Approved a change in the smoking policy in the Tecumseh Options handbook.
• Accepted gifts from the Kiwanis Club Dictionary Project ($448.80); Exxon Mobil Grant ($500) to Patterson School Literature Circle Program; $750 for 6th grade camp from the Tecumseh Schools Foundation; $9,312 for the HOPE Program from Lenawee United Way; and $380 from Pamida toward the McKinney Vayo project for the homeless.