School Board sells, retains, gifts parts of Dows property

At their June 30 meeting, the Clarion-Goldfield-Dows School Board approved the sale of the former Dows school building to Alex Mortonson, Pioneer dealer. They also gifted the property’s football field and playground to the City of Dows. The district will retain the building’s former parking lot for undetermined future uses, but is not intending to keep it plowed in wintertime.

The building sale had met with vocal resistance from the public at previous meetings. At the Board’s June 9 meeting, teacher and Dows resident Logan Holmes read a statement and presented an itemized list urging the school to wait two years to allow the community time to find an alternate use for the building, which an earlier plan had considered. The Board discussed comments made at a meeting in Dows, in which, according to Dr. Robert Olson, Superintendent, some speakers had perceived that the proceedings were “all being a secret,” with one person stating that he “would rather have it torn down than sold.”

Olson argued that the proceedings leading to the sale had been conducted publically, expressed happiness that the City of Dows would help keep the field and playground available for residents to use, and cited costs of maintenance for two years as potentially exceeding $500,000 if the building were to be retained.

Hear more about the sale, its background, the reactions of those present, and potential costs of maintaining the building – plus the discussion thereof – in the July 3 issue of the Monitor!