Here is an update on Morrill's Agriculture Education in the Star Herald. More information on the Hamilton property development will be forthcoming!
After a long four to five months of meetings, discussions and presentations with the Village of Morrill, Morrill Public Schools decided to withdraw its offer for Brownsfield and develop the property the district owns next to the track and football field complex for their agriculture education complex instead.
On Jan. 9, Superintendent Joe Sherwood announced via a news update on the Morrill Public Schools website that the school board, along with other involved faculty and staff, have decided to move forward with developing an agriculture education complex on a 3.2-acre property the district bought over 10 years ago for this purpose.
Sherwood told the Star-Herald this decision was made at the December board meeting, which took place two weeks after the village board meeting in which they voted down a purchase agreement. The school district had already approved the agreement.
“For various reasons, that property never got developed,” Sherwood said. “The disposition of the school board in December was, ‘Let’s withdraw our offer to the village, and let’s focus our attention on building an ag complex on the four acres, or 3.2 acres, that we already have.’”
According to Village Board of Trustees chairperson Tony Schuler, the school district withdrew the offer a week after the village board held a special meeting to work out changes to the purchase agreement.
“We basically only wanted to do that to, well, a few of the board members wanted to do that to help out the FFA program,” Schuler said, “and move baseball fields and downsize our baseball program that is more adequate for what we have.”
However, the withdrawn offer leaves Brownsfield a baseball field once again for the time being. The reason Brownsfield was even being considered for sale to the school district was because the operating costs for the baseball field complex were quite high for the village of Morrill — a village whose baseball and softball programs have been seeing a major decline in recent years.
Brownsfield’s lights also need replacement, which would cost the village roughly $500,000. Schuler said for now, Brownsfield will operate without the lights.
“There’s an option to get them fixed, or we just run without lights and disconnect the power to it over a period of time,” he said.
The village board discussed the future of baseball at its latest board meeting on Jan. 12. Schuler said the purpose of the discussion was to keep support for the baseball programs going. One of the biggest conflicts that arose with the prospect of Brownsfield going to the school district is that some community members felt like it took away from the baseball programs.
“One of the biggest issues we had … in the negotiation process was if we can purchase that field for $5,000, but as a result, it creates community angst and animosity in a segment of the community for the next couple decades, what is the point of that? We never set out, the school never set out to kill baseball," Sherwood said. "But there were people that were clearly upset about the idea of the school taking away the baseball complex.”
This was one of a few different reasons the school district decided to build an ag complex on a different property instead. The 3.2 acres next to the track and football field complex is not the 10 acres of Brownsfield, so the Ag complex will be smaller than originally planned. This property also requires more infrastructure development, including leveling the property and connecting to the city’s sewer line, but overall, the convenience of the property won out.
“It’s close, it’s convenient and after we reevaluated it, there’s plenty of space to do what we need to do over there,” school board president Dave Sherrod said. “We already own it, and it’s right next door.”
Currently, the district is in the planning and drawing phase of the project. The plan is to put a facility less than 5,000 sq. ft. on the property: a 1,600 sq. ft. classroom building and a 2,600 sq. ft. animal science lab building that are joined by a common entrance area with men’s and women’s bathrooms.
The district is in the process of working with B&C Steel and a retired architect from Omaha to come up with the floor plan for the facility. From there, the plans will be shared, and the district will solicit bids for the construction, as well as launch its grant writing and donor sponsored campaign. Sherwood said officials have also been speaking with an engineering firm to see what it would take to get sewer lines hooked up to property.
“We’ve got a lot to do,” Sherwood said. “We’re hoping to, planning to get this building erected (and) occupiable by Aug. 15, 2021. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do in a short period of time.”
Sherrod said he was still grateful for the village entertaining the idea of the school using Brownsfield for ag education.
“(We) thank them for considering us for that property,” he said.
