Board moves to accept offer

by Alex Violo/Valley Press
| March 13, 2015 4:01 PM

PLAINS – The Plains School Board of Trustees came together for a special meeting last Friday, March 6, at Plains High School to discuss the future of a facility that had been a part of the district for over 70 years.

The main topic of discussion at last week’s special meeting was the sale of the Wildhorse Elementary School property.

Prior to this week, the Wildhorse Property Selling Committee received offers and had made the recommendation to accept one of the offers.

At the board of trustee’s meeting the motion was moved and seconded that the board follow the recommendation of the property selling committee and sell the property to Ordelheide Dental Inc.

Both Ordelheide Dental Inc. and Town Pump made offers on the property, the former site of Plains Elementary, utilized until the spring of 2014.

According to Ron Warren, of the board of trustee’s, Ordelheide Dental had offered $425,000 for the property, while the offer from Town Pump was a little more complicated.

Warren stated Town Pump had offered $300,000 or $10,000 over a competing bid, which totaled more than their initial offer for the property in central Plains on Railroad Avenue.

However, Warren added there was a page of contingencies attached to the Town Pump offer, regarding gambling and liquor licensing among other things which made the offer more complicated from the board’s alternative.

Members of the board of trustees felt the plan submitted by Ordelheide Inc. to use the site for health and education for residents throughout Sanders County, in addition to the proposal of hosting a free clinic at the site once a year, presented a very strong future usage of the former elementary school.

The decision made last Friday by the board of trustee’s is contingent upon Ordelheide Dental Inc. providing proof of adequate financial backing by the time of the next board meeting, on March, 16.

The elementary school, originally built in 1938, sits where the main campus of all the Plains Public Schools once stood, with the elementary building, the only structure from the campus left standing.