LIVE - Update 8 (9:31 p.m.)

The board starts to talk about Sallie Curtis' transition site as seen in exhibit W.

Brassard starts the discussion. She says that at the town hall meeting two weeks ago, she had the opportunity to listen to a number of parents address concerns over Sallie Curtis issue. She said at that meeting, she invited parents to call her. Since that time, she has had only two parents call me. One begging us to keep school on site and with portables. The other one calling to ask me to consider the YMCA site.

She then questioned the polls that were taken by the TV stations and the newspaper because she didn't think they were accurate nor could they be reflective of the voters of this district.

She said she read every word of the YMCA document. She called people to find out what these costs would incur and had a few more questions.

1. If the YMCA is considered, what are the legal ramifications?
Thomas: I have to refer that to the attorney. I haven't considered the legal ramifications.

Lawyer says: We have leased property in the past. The problem is the cost that we would put into that leased proporty because we would be putting public funds into private property. There are considerable improvements that the district has done at Regina Howell so we would have to look into that.

Brassard: If we go with that, whatever physical improvements we put into that property, we may or may not have a way of recouping that cost.

Lawyer: I don't know if the Y would be willing to reimburse us for those improvements. I don't know.

Thomas says: Beaumont is a passionate community and the feelings that people have in regards to the people's children. As a Superintendent, we want to do what the members of the community would like for us to do and we try to do that. If we don't agree, it doesn't mean we didn't do that. We are just trying to make a responsible decision.

We only know of two proposals. As of Tuesday is the first I saw it (the YMCA proposal). I gave it to Mr. Ingram and both of us when out there.

One of the problems that we see. If you were to approve the YMCA site, we wouldn't get out there until March or after.

THE CROWD SCREAMS "NO. NOT TRUE!!"

Thomas continues: We got to design it. We just built Regina Howell. By the time you get the school built, we are talking about premium hours. Extra hours and everything else to get ready and it took us 4-5 months to do Regina Howell. When would we move? Not until next Aug or Sept. In January of 2001, we are scheduled to have Regina-Howell finished and that site would be available. So what did we gain? Only four months. That's it.

When we look at the money we put into the Regina Howell site. It's $3 million for a four-month advantage. I'm not going to spend it.

I love the spirit that the parents from Sallie Curtis are making. We also have to make those decisions. We have a site at Regina Howell that is vacant at that particular point. As an administration we have to recommend to you. The principal got back to us. There are 75 people that voted to move offsite. Of the 75, 45 asked for YMCA. We considered it. But this time, we recommend to move to RH site.

They voted. All voted in favor of moving to the Regina portables. Tom Neild was the only one who opposed.