Board of Mayor and Aldermen - Regular Meeting

sitting here with us. Our side's getting better looking all about your side. It only had one direction to go. That's a lot of sweet. I'm glad you brought him though. What's that?

How's it going? We're recording now. right there in the hot seat.

What's up I'm running for my

Yeah, I have a child. because my daughter every freaking

day. I think it sounds very Okay. Uh well, we'll wait just a couple more seconds here. All right. Well, it's a little after 5:30. We'll go ahead and get started. Um, first announcement I'd like to make for everybody is is, hey, we are recording this live today. uh so that everybody can see it at home if they didn't have a chance to tune in. Um today we have the pleasure of the city school system here. Uh during the work session we're going to they're going to give us some presentations and uh Dr. Vaughn, the floor is yours.

Uh Mr. Mayor, thank you uh Board of Mayor Alman. Thank you for the opportunity for us to be here today. Uh we've been we've worked closely together for years uh going on seven for me now and um it's been exciting as a lifelong resident of Koff County Manchester uh to see the growth that's happening uh around us. It's not hard to look and see and that's something that we're experiencing in Manchester city schools as well. Um in the last decade we have gone from about 1,300 students to over 1,600 students. And uh basically year-to-year we're seeing a growth from 2014 to 2015 to today there's been about an 18% growth in enrollment in Manchester City schools. Uh that is including preK through grades eight. So, we have been fortunate to add on to all three of our facilities, whether it be at College Street with um classrooms that we worked with the city of Manchester to um to build. The classrooms we added on at Westwood Middle School and the renovation we were able to do at Westwood Elementary School. At current time, our schools are all at capacity with a little growing room at Westwood Elementary. Otherwise, we're at capacity. Next year, Westwood Middle School will probably hit about 550 to 600 kids, and there will be kids in every possible area. The following year, we will probably need to look at portables the way things are now. Um so when you look at expected growth if if the city continues to grow at the rate that it's growing in the last decade by 2035 we would probably be at 2150 kids based on current growth. Uh there's nothing

that makes us think that that growth will not continue. Um and that's an exciting time for us. The one thing that's you know you know what's driving the the growth it's residential development population migration are also a big part of that. We work hard in the city schools to maintain our facilities. You can go by any of our three buildings, College Street, Westwood Elementary, or Westwood Middle, and you're going to see that the buildings are in incredibly good shape for the age that they are. College Street Elementary was originally constructed in 1915. It's one of the o oldest schools, would have been one of the oldest schools in the area. The establishment of College Street Elementary, from what we're able to tell, uh it's happened in about 1973. We've built on several times. Westwood Elementary, the construction originally was 1967, uh with a major renovation in 1987. Westwood Middle School original original construction 1960 to 1961. So with any as with any building, you begin to see the buildings age. And um I'm really proud of the work that we've been able to do to keep those buildings uh at a at a level that we can all be proud of. Having said that, we've hit the stage where we're going to have to expand and we're the board of mayor Olivan asked us to come with a plan. So today we are we are with you with a plan. Um we're excited about the possibilities. Uh we know that there are a lot of things, a lot of uh different factors that go into the decisions that you make, but we have a plan that we would would outlive anybody in this room and we're excited to do that. I have Jason Morris with Cottley Architecture with me and Mr. Morris is going to go

over um some of the plans and we'll talk through that as as we go.

Dr. Von, thank you. Mayor and members, thank you. Uh Jason Morris, Cosmic, Jones, and Morris Architects. Uh like Dr. Von said, I appreciate your uh having me here this evening. Um the school board, we've been working with the school board for 10 15 years or so, I think. Uh our firm has our firm's located up in Mount Juliet, Tennessee. We have uh 15 people on staff, schools, um public buildings, jails, uh courouses, that's kind of the the realm of the work that we do. But K12 is our our main bread and butter. that's where our main experience is. We work all across the state of Tennessee only in Tennessee. Uh but working with the with the school system, we've looked at at different options with them on on their growth. And the one that uh that we've looked at and and landed on to to present to you today is a a 68 middle school that would would be originally designed for 620 students. Uh that building would have the growth capability in the future to go up to about 850 students. Um and it would include cl various classrooms, a theater, gymnasium, dining room, things of that nature. I'm going to if I go off microphone, is that okay for the live stream?

Okay. Yeah, just talk loud. I'll talk loud. Okay. So, come over here. I've got three boards that we'll we'll take a look at. The first one and Everybody hold it. Okay. All right. I tell you what, if you don't care, how about just come back to the That works. Yeah. Dr. Van, I appreciate you.

Okay. So, so the way this this school would would function, and one thing I will say with the floor plans that we've noticed in the past is uh in public meetings, we we try not to to do them on a digital version uh because they're live streamed and then for safety and security and at that point the floor plan is out there. So, that's that's why um just for photography sakes and publishing things like that. Sorry. Um, so, so the way the school would work, you would enter on on the front and it would have a, this would be the the front of the building here, the school has what we call a central spine. And so you'll notice a hallway running from the front of the building all the way to the back. And here I'll here, Dr. Apologize to everyone back behind us. So the way this this school would work, this central spine, you would enter here at the bottom and you could go all the way to the back of the school. And we do that for for ease of movement for the students, but also for for security for the for the students and for the staff. A a staff member can stand here at this intersection and see all the way down this hallway and this one. And then we could have another one here seeing down this hallway. And so that allows for a a a reduced number of of people to be in the hallways to control the the class changes. With it being a middle school, these students will be changing classes and activities in the the hallway is always the the most exciting and the most unsecure parts of their day. So on the left side would be a administrative suite. On the right side, a media center and then we have it broken up into sixth grade, 7th grade, eighth grade classroom wings. So the students would in the grades would stay separated into their various hallways throughout the day. they would leave their hallways to go to exploratory classes. So, a music classroom, an art classroom, a theater with a stage, a uh the dining room in the back, and then also a gymnasium. The

the gymnasium is set up with four separate locker rooms. So, that would be two for for PE use and then two for uh for for basketball use uh for for games. And then the PE locker rooms would then be doubled as a visitors locker room in uh in the evenings for for basketball games. The the gymnasium would also have a volleyball court in it as well with volleyball posts uh for for volleyball games. The parking area would be off to I'll get to that here in a little bit. There's a parking area off to the side and to the back. Um the student entrance would be here on the side. The students would come in for their day and they could load and hold into the the gymnasium and then go out to the rest of their classes as the the day goes on. The

How many does the gym hold? Sir, how many would the gym hold? The gym would hold it.

The gymnasium is designed for Go to my other sheet for that. Sorry, 1100 students. 1100 in the gymnasium. Yes. So, this is the the conceptual site plan that we put together. And so, the the school here uh in the front of the property with with parking on the back and on the side. And then we have a football field with a track, a fieldhouse, a and then a baseball, softball, and soccer fields all on on property here. And then there's also room at the back. This is roughly 15 acres that we have carved off on the back area that could be used potentially for a city park or something like that of that nature. So with parking um and then the fields adjacent to each other. So we could put a a restroom building or something back there in the back. Um so that's how the the site plan lays out. One concept that we were asked to look at. So hold on to that just a second.

Um so we know this would be on the Bfulville property that we have that we we have purch that we've purchased together. Um when we look at the growth that we see one thing that we asked Jason to do, we're looking at a middle school. It also has to have room to grow because it'll start at 620 and Manchester may grow. You're thinking what will happen to Westwood Middle School? the board would decide and work, but that would probably become a primary school. Uh, grades four and five, that would take care of the elementaryaries for a long time. And I know people do not like the thought of not having the elementarymentaries as they are, but we would continue to give a outstanding education at whatever grade the board decided for us to do. Having said that, the county continues to grow. Manchester Manchester continues to grow. Coffee County is growing. At some point in time, someone may need to construct a high school. I'm not asking for that right now. May not ever, but the concept would be for Jason to grow right into this building. So, so what we've done, the the building that's here in front of you is is designed for 620 students to be in it on on day one. And then the the dash area here would be future expansion. So another wing could be built here which would then increase up to to 850 students. The the dining room in this building is designed for 850 students so that the dining room would already be built to that size. So if the addition were ever done then the dining room could handle that and that's that's what we call the core capacity. Um, so then what we looked at, how could we lay this thing out to where in the future maybe you could have some shared uh features into this building. And so, so if you look at this one, you notice it's kind of cut off at the back.

Initially, looks kind of different. Maybe not a, you know, efficient way to do things. But what we've done is we have lined up to where another kitchen could be built, another serving lines could be built adjacent to the existing kitchen. So 68 from this line down. And then in the long future, you could come in and add a 912 wing to it. So the 912 wing would be two stories and it would add about 105,000 square ft to the facility. So everything here, this line down is 110,000 ft². This line up is 105,000 ft². So we're adding space for for dining room. We're adding an auxiliary gymnasium. We're adding locker rooms as well for for the high school and then classrooms. And the classroom space is for 840 students in in the high school. And so, so the way it works is you would enter the high school on this side, enter the middle school on this side. There would be no reason for them to cross during the day except for maybe going to the theater because the theater would be shared between the two. So,

the the theater seats uh 750 is how big the theater is. So the and the the gymnasium was holding,00. So you could you could hold assemblies for each school in the gymnasium separately. It would not be large enough to put both schools into the gymnasium at the same time. So is that high school going to be built on the same ground? Yes, sir. Yeah. Jason, can could you show us how that would lay out on the Yeah. Yes, please.

Yeah. So, I do not have an additional drawing here, but the the high school would be built basically in this parking lot. Right there is where that would go. And so, the first floor of the high school would be on the same finished floor level as the the main the only level of the middle school. So you'd be able to walk from the front of the middle school straight out to the back of the high school all on the same level. The only reason to ever go to the second level would be for the additional classrooms in the high school. It's like I said, it fits within this parking lot here. And then when that when that is built at whatever point in the future, you could come in and then you could use this space here in the back and add add parking. Doing this, you you save quite a bit of square footage. So, you're saving kitchen square footage. You're cuz we're using some of the kitchen. We're This was This is in the future. In the future, when you build a high school, we're saving the theater footage. Um we're saving some lobby square footage. So, you're you're using the spaces and it's a it's a much smaller footprint to come in and put just that here on this. And so what we what we would do is we would stub out services in we' stub out services coming out of this building to tie them together. And so the sprinkler system would be stubbed out to water to come into here. Water for that building. Power would be subbed out. We we would not put the infrastructure in, but the stubouts would be there to connect the two buildings together. And then when it when it was ever finished, it would look just like it was all done at the same time. the brick brick could shade, you know, if we're talking you're talking 20 years, the brick's going to maybe look a little bit different, but you know, it'd be tried to get as close as possible. So,

so could you just turn that around and one day put another elementary school instead of high school? You sure could. You sure could. At at that point, you Yeah, absolutely. You could tie on classrooms and do the exact same thing. That the biggest difference for an elementary school is we like to keep it one level. So, it might take up a little bit more square footage on the site, but you would still save the gymnasium space. You would you probably maybe want to build a smaller auxiliary gym at that point. Um, but you could absolutely Yes, sir. You could do that. You could turn it into a K8 instead of a 612 for

questions. I I mean I this is more to the board. Um I understand your you guys' responsibility is to as the city, but I just want to say like from my standpoint as a county resident also there they have the same issues with overcrowding. They have the same issues with growth. I I'll support this in however way you phase it, but I would support the completion of both. And and from the standpoint of, and I've I've shared this opinion in the past, that puts the county in a stronger position to uh decide what they're going to do facility-wise. There's this question of like how and who is what's going to happen first. Is the county going to build a new high school? Is the city going to build a high school? So, I I think from a community standpoint, I think the responsible thing to do would be to go ahead and and build a city high school. The the community has spoke clearly that there is no appetite to consolidate schools. There's never been an appetite for that. And I just I feel like if we build a middle school, we're taking care of the overcrowding of the current structure that we have. But if we build a high school, we address overcrowding both city and countywide. And I think from a community standpoint, that would be more responsible. So that's my question is, could we look at this as a total project? I'm guessing it's not going to be any cheaper to build in the future than it would be to build it now. Costs obviously continue to rise. Uh what you could do is

I apologize for my Vanna White skills popping this up and down. Um but what you what we do often in are alternates on buildings and the alternates are put in to you determine maybe this is the number of square footage these are the number of students that I have to have on day one and then you add maybe okay I wanted some growth for we'll say four classrooms if if for the high school so what we would do is we would look at the number of students that would maybe be consolidated into that and then and then decide how big this needs needs to be if it were to be done now instead of in the future because this is obvious this is a a future plan. This is you this would be the max that you would do. And so what we would do is we would design it to where maybe you only did you know these six classrooms here and then you add four on each wing at at the end and that would help that would help now with the cost.

Same concept as you're applying to That's right. That's right. Yeah. I I mean I just if we're going to talk about this as a board and again I don't I don't know why I don't know what the hesitation is to go ahead and have that conversation. I don't know if it's but I'll start us in that conversation. And if somebody's got to put their head on the guillotine, whatever. I just to me we are addressing a city issue here and you know it is certainly a need but I think from a community standpoint we should address we if we have an opportunity to address both I think we should.

Yeah. I think that uh you know that's that's been the the whole process right is um I think today they came with some immediate needs that we have to address in the short term. Um I myself am and fond of city high school. It it's all going to come down to uh to money. I mean, I mean, you know, uh, I guess probably now would be a good time to to start kind of the conversation about the middle school cost and then, you know, I'm I'm sure you're probably not prepared to have a high school cost, but that would be something I think we should bring back into the conversation as you pair that down to meet what would be immediate today.

Absolutely. Yes, sir. So, the the middle school concept the middle school concept. It's a 110,000 square feet. Um I'm using $375 a square foot right now for our construction cost estimate. That uh that does not include uh FFN and soft soft costs. Those would be on top of that. So we'll get to that in a minute. Um so my estimate for the middle school right now is around 41 million 41,250. Uh, and then the sports facilities, which would be the football field, the soccer field, the baseball field, the softball field, and the fieldhouse. Um, I've got that right now estimated around 6 million. And these are conceptual estimates at this point. Um, and then the FFN, so furniture, fixtures, equipment. So, new building, we've got new furniture, you got classroom furniture, you've got new uh new Wi-Fi, you've got new things like things of that nature that are going to go into it. Uh, 3 million for that. And then soft costs which is design and permitting uh around 3 million also. So the the middle school concept estimate would be right now estimated around 53 million. And then if you were just using rough numbers, you know, the high school is 105,000t addition before you pair it down. So you could, you know, pretty much double that and that would get you to the to the full 612 concept. Um square footage is is your biggest obviously cost when it comes to these things and and these buildings are are large buildings and construction cost is is as you said it's it's expensive. It's not getting cheaper uh by the day. So that's um that would kind of be where both of them would actually probably weigh out. And then that's like I said before the high school would be paired down to maybe the number of students you would need it for today. And when when was the last time you guys approached us with a school proposal, a

potential school proposal? Because I remember the number was around 30 million. Uh and it wasn't that long ago. Yes. I I think that it would have been uh someone from the board remember last time would have been was in the last three years something like that. 3537. But did that have the facil the sports facilities included? No, I think it did. No, that's six million. I mean, you're still Yeah. My point is again, it's not going to get any cheaper to do.

And and if and if we don't do something and the county does something that that cost is still applicable to us as taxpayers. So, so you're looking at $100 million to do both. probably just less but but close. I mean because we're not going to need a 850 student high school, right? So we would probably uh as they talked about cut some classrooms off which takes some square footage off, but you're still going to be rough idea probably 75 to $85 million even if we took off some square footage for high school.

You're not going to build the you're not going to build the sports fields twice. So there's there's 6 billion that's not going to double. Um so if you know the 110,000 foot building was 41 million. Um you know so say 38 to that. So 7580 million I mean you know and I don't I don't want you to think I'm saying that just like you know it's just $75 million. I understand it's a large amount of money. If you say that fast enough it doesn't sound too and I I I did not mean to gloss over that like that. I apologize. Million. We understand.

It's just a drop in the bucket. It's not at all. I don't understand. Point is, we're going to have to address the expansion within the next I mean guys, we're not talking too far. We're saying future. I don't know what future means to you guys. What in the next five years? I mean, it's going to be a third more and it's going to be in the same bucket of money that we have now. Financially, our city's better off than we've ever been. I I just, you know, I think it's time to have a real hard hard conversation about the whole thing because I'll make a motion when it gets to that point, but I I support vetting the project from the whole entire 6 through 12 campus first. I think it needs to be primary and then we'll go backwards if if that's if we decide we can't do it financially. But it's not going to get cheaper. And there's no there's no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in the next five years that's going to make this significantly more obtainable. So part part of the conversation, right, is is going to be the finances. And when I first came to office, Anthony and I sat down with our financial advisor and we had the conversation about u I think it was around $50 million school if if that if I remember correctly and he told us that we were going to need to probably have about $5 million more dollars worth of revenue to pay for it. Um, now where that comes from, you know, we we can all debate that and have conversations and figure this out. And if you're going to add another 25 million or 30 million to it, now you're looking at probably 7 to 7.5 million um of new revenue um to to pay for this, right? Um not saying it ain't doable. I'm just saying that that's a a big

conversation. um that we're going to have to sell because the current um you know our our our current budget itself is is about $20 million. So now you're taking it to you know you're going to have to include debt service and and all those things to that. But we can we can discuss all those things. I mean today is more presentation. I do agree with Alderman French. Um, and it gives everybody up here something to start thinking about. U, it's not going to get cheaper. And if that's the side what this board really wants to do, then between the school board and Bulma and finances and everything, um, we're going to have to have some real honest conversations about what the school board can do. You guys have a budget almost the same size as ours. um what that looks like on top of just the building for teachers and and everything else you're going to need. So, so I mean uh I think I hear everybody loud and clear that it's time that we really over the next 60 days have some real conversations and make a direction of what we want to do. Is that kind of fair for everybody on the board? I mean, uh you know,

Dr. Well, I I have one burning question and you know probably what it is. I'm ready. I think what are we going to do about transportation?

All right. So, uh I have been looking diligently for transportation. Um when you look at the cost of buses, we bought one this year. Uh you also look at the upkeep. So, I'm working with the company that magnet that Warren County outsourced um Echoride. Um, the cost of a a I've I've priced basically six routes. There would be bus stops in the city of Manchester. It would not run every neighborhood, but it would basically run the stops that are already stopped. Um, a a bus route is going to cost about $60,000 a route plus fuel. Um, so you look at six six routes, the math. Um, and then you add fuel to that. But what that does, um, it keeps us from having to build a transportation, a garage, uh, hire a mechanic and those things. But so far, that's the only provider that I found that would, uh, even talk to me because of the size. Now, obviously, we're going to grow um and there will be more kids that, for example, would attend the middle school, but we do have a number and um I'm continuing to work with them. We had a really good meeting last week and I'm waiting on some solid numbers, but that's that's the original place that we were. Is it somehow I've got in my head that if a kid can only go a mile, so if you put this school out there, you're going to be out of that range for a lot of children. So is this will the state make us do that?

Um so no, not necessarily. Um there are other places that are are examples. The mile is you don't have to pick them up within a mile. Okay. So that's the the way the schools are now. most of if you if you have transportation, you would not have to pick up within a mile radius if you have it. Um, but since we do not, that doesn't apply. However, I do understand that when we look at a new school, uh, it may be that there are a lot of kids that go to our elementarymentaries and they might pick up a bus to go there or stops within the the community, but we're looking we're looking at that and those are the numbers that we have right now.

So, This is probably a question for somebody either finance or you or or some or or Dr. Raider there. So if we did a high school, right, the city of Manchester now pays a county fee and taxes that go to the county, right? We support the high school through some of our taxes. Is that is that a correct statement? We pay a higher tax rate than Tal does to the county because some of our kids are sent to the county high school in the ninth grade academy

and the ninth grade academy. That that is a correct comment. Right. So we would be we would claw those taxes back into this revenue to pay for it along with the kids that we would get the money for for going. Correct. you you would you would pull that money and then you would also so county money we are funded on 80 ADM average daily membership so um let's just say we pull 600 kids we would we generate that money from the county and we would also generate that money from the state funding body being Tissa so it it would help pay for those and the city taxpayers money that goes for those would come back to us to help pay for this school

well it would be an adjusted rate. So our property taxes, Manchester City residents county property tax rate is higher than home city rate, but that rate is not dollar for dollar because a penny creates more. So the rate would be applicable in a different level, but the the the end result should be the same. But there is an amount that we would get back that would help us pay for this project that we're already paying that would not increase somebody's taxes. Yep. Correct. Correct. Anthony, you get a new task of figuring out what that is.

Well, we got to know, right? I mean, if you're going to have conversations about the money, right? I mean, that's money we're already paying that we don't need to find. So, I mean, it's just something that has to be put into this equation as we have the bigger conversation, especially if we're going to a high school. Okay. Do we roughly know what our high school population would be? Right? You can count on right now, you can say 200 uh 200 a grade. Um, I'm talking future. Right now, you're looking more at 150 to 170 a grade. That's still significant. And that again

consider also that if you go to high school it's going to gradually each year it's going to build up particular students in the city you may start out with the 10th grade and then next year you have the 10th and 11th next year you have 10 11 and 12ville went through this process when they started city high school. So you're saying grow into the grades versus Yeah. You know, it's not going to get full all 9 through 12 or 10 through 12, whatever. It's not going to be full that first two, three years because you got students that are going to be coming into it and gradually building up the process as such.

What do you estimate the cost would be to staff a high school, the the faculty? Um we have not I mean it would depend on courses offered basically the the state salary minimum you know I'm not telling you anything you don't is going to be at 50,000 um so your class size maximum is going to be 30 you're going to run about 22 um so and you have more courses you're going to generate more money as well for example at a high school you're going to generate money for CTE courses uh so we'd be very strategic in what we offered but we actually gain money uh we would gain money. We gain money at the middle school now for career technical education. Um so we would have to look at it would depend on basically the number of kids we have, the number of teachers that we'd have to have. Right now um with 1600 kids we have about 300 employees. So basically we would we would double not quite but it would be close to to doubling the number of employees we have.

You have how many employees? 300. So you would double that? Not quite double. Not quite because some of the things would uh you're adding a new facility so the other facilities are going to stay in place. Um children in the city assume we built this high school. Children in the city would still have the option to go to the county high school.

That would be yes. They would just like this kids in the county would have the option to come to the city as long as we had room for them. They would pay tuition to come. No. Yeah, they would pay tuition to come. which I think is a great question because it the timeline is the same. If if we do nothing, the county is going to have to do this themselves and then all of this is the same conversation and you have one system running two schools. It's going to have the same net impact on city taxpayers as if we just complete our system once you once the county has two system two schools in play because you're not diluting that with a larger tax base anymore at that point. And that that's that's what I I don't think the board's ever really considered when this conversation's come up before. High schools in particular though they're based on an efficiency of the type of class you need to offer. It's an economy of scale. The more students, the more you have that take French or German or you get into the offerings when the school is below a certain size. Probably I can't think of a better example of a place that's dealt with growth than Rutherford County. Would everybody agree with that? Murphy'sboro they to my knowledge Murphy'sboro city schools are only K8. The high school operates eight high schools I believe in Rutherford County or nine. So it it's a it's a tough question about numbers when you get to that level because am I correct that there's an efficiency to big high schools?

Um so I'm going to I'm going to say yes sir there is an efficiency to the high schools but you also at some point have to look at what's best for kids. Yes. So when you put start putting 2,000 kids into one school, uh kids get lost. And we live in a world where uh you know the world we live in. It's it's a this is a great place, but um you can easily get lost in a 2,00 school. So that the same as our our elementaryaries, uh college streets pushing 600 kids. I don't want it to be any bigger. Um

I I I think elementary Yeah, I think that's there's some difference, but again, Rutherford County, they build those high schools. Some of them are above 2500 students, maybe even closer to one, maybe closer to 3,000. Now, I think they're, you know, they build schools pretty regular in Murphy, about one a year, it seems like. But I can tell you from from experience, uh, as a high school principal, the first year I was a high school principal, I had about 1,800 kids. the next year it moved to the took the ninth grade out. Everything about that school changed. Um every everything about the hall the just the number the sheer number and I'm not disagreeing with you about the offerings. Um but if Manchester City Schools gets to the point where we do offer uh do have a high school, we would be very scripted in what we offer. Um we're not looking to be in competition with with anybody. We want to be in competition with us to be the best we can. So, we're going to look at the arts. Uh we're probably going to look heavy at at um medicine. Uh we're going to look heavy at engineering. Um so, we would not be as necessarily diverse in the offerings. We'd be very scripted and and specific so that our kids could uh have a different experience and and they have a great experience at Coff County, but I but it doesn't need to be any bigger. Well, by default, what you just said is applicable to the county school. It becomes even I mean you that average classroom size drops for them in a big way, too. So,

I've said enough. Everybody knows where I stand. I think is is an interesting example. They did build a city. They've had a city system there for a long time and built a city high school. A big difference with with Favville is um I Yeah, I'm gonna say because I I know that I'm speaking correct. Um Favville's not growing. No, it's it's I I would say it's considerably smaller than this town now. It didn't used to be that way, but yeah, I would agree with that.

Most most places around us in this area are their student population is going down. We're one of the few places that is staying steady or going up. So that for the county as well as the city.

Yeah. I mean in the last census that was done right. I mean Manchester City was the growth engine inside the county. The county lost more people or didn't grow as much as I mean grew less than Manchester. So you're you're exactly right. I mean, when it comes to that and I think part of us, you know, comparing ourselves to somebody like Rutherford County, we're never going to be Rutherford County. We're never going to be Murphy'sboro. The best we can hope for is to be the size of Taloma, which is a third bigger than we are, right? So, I think that's a better model of of something to to be discussing as a long-term growth plan. But, um, does anybody got any more questions? I mean,

I have one thing I'd like. Not really a question. And I don't want to rain on anybody's parade or be killjoy, but Lonnie's sitting there in the front row. Lonnie's going to need some money. Mhm. Quite a bit of it. Mhm. We We probably going to have to borrow what we spend on Lonnie, right? Yeah. But Lonnie pays for his own money. No, but there's He does. I understand. That's two separate buckets. I know. But still, it's it's a bond issue and it Yeah, but they're they're they're separate buckets. They're separate bond issues. Uh one business doesn't interlap into the other one.

But Lonnie's borrowed money will affect the city's bond issues when we get to that far. I know. I'm just saying we need to talk about that. Yes. But but I I am a 100% behind.

I I know. I mean, and and like I said, I I think we're getting the cart way down the road here. Um, but I think the presentation about a new middle school was great. I think the conversations about the high school is great. And I think we need to keep having them so that we as this body can make some kind of decision before we leave office in August for the ones who are leaving. I think that that is something that we have kicked down the the road as much as water and sewer and anything else in the city. And I think that it's time that we address it and make some decisions so that school board knows how to uh plan their future.

Mr. Mayor, we appreciate and board of mayor and alderman, we appreciate the questions um and the time. I will tell you just for point of reference um start to finish a a construction of a new school would be about three years. Um so um you know once once you start the process you'd get busy lock some prices in uh but it is it is a process. So again thank you. If you have questions never hesitate call my office uh shoot me a message. I'll be glad to talk to you at any time. So,

thank you. And and I think that rolls into exactly what we're talking about, right? The longer uh we can't come up with a an answer, the harder it is on you guys because, you know, listening to the conversation, um you're already talking within the next year or two, you're going to have to have portables just to handle what you have today. So, three years from now, I mean, we have no idea, right? So, uh, does anybody else want to ask anything else before we take a short break before we get to Bulma?

Yeah, just one quick question. Dr. Vaughn, you may you may be able to speak for the board. Um, all things being equal, what would the board prefer? Would the board would the preference be Katie bar the door, let's go all the way, or what what is that conversation like? Um, so it has been a goal, uh, and I can't speak for my board, but I've worked with them enough that I can confidently answer that question. The city of Manchester school board has had a goal for a long time of being a complete district, which is a high school. We also understand the the workings and the challenges we get that city water and sewer has has needs. uh we were asked to come for with a plan for immediate needs and that is the middle school but I also can't not give the big picture and a high school. So to answer your question yes the city school board would absolutely approve and and support a city high school but we also understand there are some restrictions and things we have to go by. We have to have a middle school.

Thank you. Thank you. Everybody good? Everybody ready to take a little break? And uh we'll we'll get started here in about 10 or 15 minutes with with Bulma. Thank you.