Superintendent Malcolm Thomas has told the IN that he didn’t know about the 1.4-million water leak at Brownsville Middle School until Friday, Jan. 8—after we made the public records request for the closed school’s utility bills. Really? His staff knew about a leak in November and knew this property was up for sale. Shouldn’t someone had mentioned the problem to Rev. May?
How can you sell the property in good faith without knowing the full extent of the underground piping problem? Turning off the valve isn’t a repair.
This isn’t the only closed school that Thomas has tried to sale to a church. For the past five years, New Life Baptist Church leased the old Century High School from the Escambia County School District for $1 a year, under an agreement negotiated by Jim Paul.
Thomas canceled the lease agreement. He gave the church two options: 1) Buy it for $400K or 2) Lease the building for $150,000 a year, which will probably make it the most expensive rental property in Century. $150,000 for a property appraised at $400,000 is ridiculous. In less than three years, the church would own the property. New Life Baptist Church has turned down both “offers.â€
Life is more than numbers. There needs to more scrutiny of how the School District is dealing with its surplus property.