School, city discussing building trade in Colton

Garth Meyer, Gazette Reporter | Apr 24, 20130

The city owns the school athletic fields and the school owns a prominent old building on Main Street.

This is the situation in Colton, which may change as discussions are being had about a potential trade between the city and the school.

The building is the two-story old brick bank on Highway 195 across from the post office. In 2004, the school took ownership of the bottom half of the building when AmericanWest Bank moved to Uniontown.

The Knights of Columbus owns the second floor, where their meeting hall is. Bob Bates’ insurance business rents the first floor for $400 a month.

At a Colton school board meeting in February, Mayor Jerry Weber proposed working out some kind of trade.

“I’d like to preserve the old bank building and if there’s a possibility this could work, everybody could benefit. But I’ve got a lot of footwork left to do,” said Weber, who is also a member of the Knights of Columbus, a 501c3 non-profit international Catholic organization.

The current situation began when AmericanWest sold the building’s bottom floor to the school for $1 in an agreement that no financial institution would be housed on the property.

Weber had an appraisal of the bank building done earlier this year, which totaled $76,000. The athletic fields, which the city owns, cover roughly four acres, including the baseball and football fields. The softball diamond is on school-owned land.

Weber, who reported on his meeting with the school board at a city council meeting March 4, said that the city council has shown hesitation.

“The city doesn’t feel like they should be owning property and renting it,” he said.

A concern for whoever may own the building in the future is maintenance and upkeep.

“As the building advances in age, there is potential for some real expense for maintenance,” said Colton School Superintendent Nate Smith. “And we do not want to get into that business.”

The mayor has a similar concern.

“We don’t want to spend taxpayer money for something to become a money grabber,” Weber said. “My ultimate goal would be to have a community center upstairs to rent out.”

He indicated that, for the athletic fields, the city has no designs on using that property for anything else.

“Nothing would be done with it other than what it’s for,” Weber said.

The school staff maintains the city-owned fields.

“A change in ownership would not affect us at all,” said Smith, concerning maintenance. “I really think (a trade) would be a win-win, for the school district and the town.”

The school’s $400 monthly rent income from the bank building goes to the Associated Student Body.

The mayor has indicated he looked into whether a trade would indeed be legal, which he confirmed.

“That’s the only way I’d do it,” Weber said. “Where there wouldn’t be any money exchanged.”

While the school doesn’t want to get into the business of fixing an old building, neither do the Knights of Columbus, according to Grand Knight Pat O’Neill.

“There needs to be repair work for the bricks,” said O’Neill. “Our organization doesn’t have that kind of money to buy it, to repair it.”

He went on to say that if the city owned the building, there may be grants they could get to pay for those updates.

Nonetheless, the Knights have a basic interest in the second floor of the building.

“We want to continue to have a meeting place,” said O’Neill. “When an organization doesn’t have a meeting place, generally the organization ceases to exist. So we want to maintain an active organization. That’s our deal.”

The Knights meet in the hall twice per month from September to June.

They would be happy to share the space with other groups renting it out, said O’Neill.

“All we want is a 99-year lease to meet up there every two weeks,” O’Neill said.

Changes have been made to the building over the decades, such as windows being closed off and stucco siding put on. Inside the hall are men’s and women’s bathrooms, a full kitchen and hardwood floor.