By Tom Gilchrist
For The Advertiser
CASS CITY — With a $40 million milk-processing plant under construction here, village leaders and employees of a real-estate company have this advice for the Cass City Public Schools Board of Education: Don’t sell the former Campbell Elementary School.
“In our business, we see the economy on the upswing and with all the new businesses and jobs created in Cass City in the recent months, we feel as professionals that most of the approximately 50 homes that are still empty will be sold to school-age families moving into the area for some of the jobs,” Kelly Smith, of Cass City’s Kelly & Co. Realty, wrote in a letter to school-board President Craig Bellew.
A Dairy Farmers of America milk-processing plant, under construction off Doerr Road and expected to open this fall, is projected to bring 30 new jobs paying about $15 per hour, Hartel said.
The superintendent said Smith and Cass City Village Manager Peter J. Cristiano have recommended the school district keep the school.
School-board members will convene with Dairy Farmers of America officials at a workshop Monday at 7 p.m. at the Cass City Municipal Building, at Seeger and Main streets, to hear details about the milk plant.
Hartel said village leaders have informed him that a second phase of the plant, expected to be built within five years, “will take the processed milk, turn it into powdered milk and it’s going to be shipped throughout the world” with the potential for 300 new jobs at the facility.
Smith’s letter to Bellew, read aloud at Monday’s board meeting by board Secretary Sloane Stimpfel, states that Kelly & Co. and its staff don’t believe the school district should sell the former Campbell Elementary building along Rose Street.
“Therefore taking a listing on the building and trying to sell it would be hypocritical when you don’t believe in something,” Smith wrote.
Several board members have said they’d like to offer the former school for sale. But the board agreed on Monday with Vice President Alice Zaleski’s idea to hear next week’s presentation about the dairy plant before talking about the former school.
The arrival of a new industrial plant doesn’t guarantee more students in Cass City buildings, according to Hartel.
“I know some things have been brought up to me that other towns have seen a lot of industry come into their towns, and have seen zero growth in their school district,” Hartel said. “So I don’t think there’s any guarantee of that (growth) happening, but it makes sense to at least hear this out.”
In April, board members voted to offer to lease — but not sell — the former school to a group proposing to use the building as a nonprofit dental clinic for low-income adults. The group hasn’t agreed to lease the structure.
In other developments announced at Monday’s board meeting, Bridge Magazine has hailed Cass City High as among the state’s top ten schools that get the most academic achievement from 11th-graders. The magazine ranked the school in its “Top Ten 11th Grade” list.
Cass City High is among “the state’s best at raising student achievement above expected scores for the student body’s income level, according to a formula developed by Bridge Magazine and the Lansing research firm of Public Sector Consultants,” the magazine stated.
Caseville High School also made the magazine’s “Top Ten 11th Grade” list released this month.
Also on Monday, Cass City’s school board voted to move its board meetings from the high-school library to the “board room” in the superintendent’s office, beginning with the next regular meeting at 7 p.m. on Feb. 24.
“The board meetings used to always be in that room,” Hartel said. “It’s a round table, and you can have better discussions when you’re right around the table.”
When the board has met in the library, board members sit in a row from left to right, with all board members facing the audience.