County investigates acquiring Inverness High School

The Hill County Commission Monday discussed the possibility of acquiring Inverness High School through delinquent taxes with the intention of using a brownfields grant to clean-up the property before selling it in a bid.

The building hasn’t been used as high school since the 1980s, with Joplin and Inverness consolidating into a district with Joplin housing the high school and then that district consolidating with Chester to form the Chester-Joplin-Inverness district.

Greg Woods and his family have expressed an interest in obtaining the Inverness property and have said they are willing to pay up to $15,000 for it, although the county said they would need to put the property up for bid before that.

“We have ideas for the property, and we’d like to do this pretty soon,” Woods said.

He said he and his family have been debating what exactly to do with the property, but he said the current plan is to demolish all the buildings and make the property into a kind of park.

Woods also said he might be interested in buying brick from the demolished structures if the county were to acquire the property.

Bear Paw Development Corp. Director of Community Planning and Brownfields Director Samantha Chagnon said the school was found in an assessment that was performed many years ago to have a great deal of asbestos which would need to be removed if the property were to become safe again.

Greg Wood’s son Matt said he was particularly concerned with the property as a safety hazard.

“We, surprisingly, have gotten some younger kids growing up in the town now and there’s at least a dozen within two blocks of the school, and they’re going to get to the age where they’re exploring and I don’t want somebody getting hurt, because we did that too,” he said.

Chagnon said a brownfields grant would be able to cover the clean-up of the property, but the county would have to make a 20 percent match.

She said based on an old report, which she considers a very rough estimate, the grant would be about $65,000 to cover the clean-up which would bring the county’s cost to $13,000.

Chagnon said there might be additional costs related to the clean-up as well.

“The report is good, but there’s always stuff that gets missed,” she said.

Greg Woods said he didn’t want to buy the property directly because he cannot make use of brownfields grants, which Chagnon said, could only be made use of by a local government or nonprofit.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said he was interested in the project for the sake of public safety and a desire to see the property brought back to a taxable status, but said he wanted to make sure the acquisition wouldn’t be a significant financial burden on the county.

“As much as I want to get this done for Greg and the county, I still want it understood that I don’t want the county to have an expense into this, that’s not what we want because right now we just don’t have a lot of money,” he said.

He proposed that the $13,000 could be made up for with the sum that Woods had offered, though he acknowledged that the property would need to go through a bidding process.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean also said she wanted to make it clear that, depending on what happened this may not be a free project, even if it is more efficient for a government to do it than a private citizen.

“There’s definitely value to the property being cleaned up and coming back into functionality of some kind and being a taxed entity to the county, it’s not like we’re losing here,” she said.

“It isn’t entirely free for government … yes it’s way better for the county to do it, but it’s not free,” she added.

Wendland said the county has never been interested in acquiring the property due to the cost of taking care of it.

“We’ve never wanted that property because of the asbestos issue,” he said. “We could have took it 10 years ago for delinquent taxes … we knew it wasn’t free, the brownfields wasn’t free, the asbestos wasn’t free, the clean-up wasn’t free, or we would have taken that property years ago.”

Peterson said that represents Wendland’s personal opinion and did not represent the opinion of the county.

Christin Hileman, a brownfields specialist from NewFields, said that before proceeding with the project, the county should consult with the Montana State Historic Preservation Office to see if the property would be considered a historic sight.

Hileman said if that is the case brownfields grants would not be available and any renovation would have to be approved by them, and demolition is generally not something they’re okay with.

Chagnon also brought up concerns she had about the property’s title.

She said had spoken with the previous county attorney who said old schools like this often have problems with their title lines, and the county should make absolutely sure that the titles have been in order so as not to risk having the property revert to a previous owner when they attempt to acquire it.

Hileman recommended that Bear Paw reach out to the State Historic Preservation Office to find out whether or not they would consider the site historic, and for the commission to ask Hill County Attorney Karen Alley to look at the title history.

Hileman also recommended that the county work with Chagnon to get a Phase Two assessment of the property, which would be costless and require the permission of the current owner, to get a better idea of what the actual cost of the clean-up would be.

Chagnon said they wouldn’t have the funding necessary for the assessment until September or October.

Peterson proposed that whatever the match on that new estimate could become the minimum price the county was willing to accept for the property.

Hileman said she realized that cost is a big concern to Wendland and asked him if the estimate was low it would be reassuring.

“If we can show that there is going to be zero or minimum costs to the county is this a project you would want to move forward with?” she asked.

“No comment,” Wendland said.