What About Packard?

[honebee]

You know, since we have that big, new middle school on Stewart Avenue, whatever happened to Packard? Is it being used for anything? Why can't space be rented out to bring money into the District? Or, if we sold it, wouldn't that bring more money in and less spent for the unkeep of it? I just don't know what the story is with this building and I am curious to know what the District is doing with it.

[justfacts]

HI,

Over the past several months there have been sentances written in the Board Minutes about the Packard School. Over the same months there have been paragraphs of inquiry and speculation in resident's e-mail exchanges about that idle and costly School.

Here's one such exchange from March (names omitted ~ but available):

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Yes, it is strange how things seem to "pop-up" in unison at times. Just recently, I discussed with someone the idle Packard School property and how it, or a report about it, never seems to take up much time at a Board meeting. Nor are there any demands for a comprehensive report or study.

I'd think that anyway that property could turn into $$$ to offset the intended property tax hike would be a very active subject of debate ~ including wild ideas such as incurring a "reverse-mortgage" or using the property itself to secure a further reduced rate on a "Revenue Anticipate Note" (RAN) which we know is coming down the pike.

The silence implies no-one is chartered to directly act upon the cost burden of keeping the property active and in repair, nor chartered with the responsibility to restore the property to the tax rolls as rapidly as possible, As it is now - it is all liability and not an asset.
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And here's one from June;
Since you live so near Packard you're familiar with the amount of regular staff they have on hand on an average day.

Jeff Burns, when asked, responded he didn't know how much it cost in the Budget to keep Packard active, but it was about $100,000 per year. Let's see 6 vehicles every day, 6 personnel, lights, heat, etc., and now you say roofing, blacktop etc., quite a shewd operator to keep all that going for just $100K.

But do I believe him? Yeah, you bet!
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Packard, at best, is a drain on this community's resources. The Board even spoke of converting the newly refurbished Sports grounds to a 100 car Parking lot for one potential renter.

Just who authorized them to become Landloads at the Taxpayer's expense? When would we "break even" if such internal and external costs were incurred to rent the place?

I personally, don't trust this Board to do such common sense studies of the effectiveness of that action ~ do you?

[jdavola]

Hey genius, ask Tom Suozzi...he said he would do anything he could to help out this district...and then when the Nassau County Police Department showed interest in Packard for their Police Academy....Tom Suozzi told the district "he was not interested"....

[archer99]

J Davola,

Thanks for joining the group!
The more the better.


I don't know how we can blame Mr. Tom Suozzi for anything.

If a kid wanted to sell my daughter a used bicycle that was told to be unsafe and I said "I'm not interested", would it be my fault if it wasn't bought?

And we still have to find out IF the district can legally be a landlord. ( I know it was done in the past, but that was through BOCES)

I also again may be wrong, but I heard from a few "other" sources, and some may be suprised, that one of the considerations was the parking. Now some people have said that the sports fields could be converted. The girls soccer teams have been practicing there and there is no room for all the teams as it is. Plus the fields have glass and sewer caps on the fields. Now we wouldn't want our new police officers to park on that would we?