(Milford)– Meeting in special session Thursday evening, the Okoboji School Board acknowledged the successful bidder on the existing middle school site in Arnolds Park was lakes area businessman Neil Slater at $1.1 million. Superintendent Todd Abrahamson says the board was pleased with how the online bid process worked…
“Yeah I’m satisfied with how this all played out. As I said, as the school district we followed the ballot language and the key point was to the highest bidder, and so we got the highest bidder and as we announced today it was Neal Slater and the company that he established and works for and so we set that public hearing for March 16th at 5:25 pm here at the district office. So we’re satisfied with the process. The school district has done their part.”
Abrahamson declined to say how many bids were received or how competitive they were…
“We’ll get more into that at March 16th because I had signed a confidentiality agreement so I need to sit down with our attorney, Connor Wasson and NAIA United and TenX to see what information that I’m obligated as the district to share with, so more to come on that at March 16th.”
The successful $1.1 million bid matched an offer the district had previously received on the site from Imagine Iowa Great Lake, but Abrahamson says there is a difference in the overall dollar amount the district will receive…
“The difference between that $1.1 million and this $1.1 million is we marketed and actually had a commercial agent for us so they get a five percent commission. So if it was a million dollars or more it was a five percent commission for them. Under a million dollars it was six percent. So at a million one that’s $55,000 that comes off that $1.1 million so as a district we’re getting less than $1.1 million but as I said we followed the petition language, to the highest bidder, to market, to market it, and we felt this was the best ability because it went nationwide through TenX and NAIA United so we definitely hit a bigger pool of people that way but with that there is a cost for that. We will use that money to pay down the principle of the bond which we had already passed a resolution.”
Neil Slater was at last evening’s meeting but didn’t say what he might have in mind for future use of the property.
