NIC picks prairie home

COEUR d'ALENE - A new $15 million Career Technical Education Building will be located on North Idaho College's 40 acres on the Rathdrum Prairie, but how it will be financed is still in question.

After years of planning, the NIC Board of Trustees met Monday night to finally settle on a new location for the facility.

While the decision certainly was not unanimous, it drew a three-vote majority, with Trustee Judy Meyer casting the sole dissenting vote.

Meyer debated the merits of integrating the technical programs with the academic student body on the Fort Grounds campus, but it wasn't enough to convince the other members of the board - including Chairman Ken Howard, who only votes in the case of a tie, but said he would have voted with the majority on that motion.

He said each of the four proposed locations had its merits and each would have made a great location for the tech programs.

"No matter how we vote on this, we are not going to make a bad decision," Howard said before the vote, adding he was a little concerned about splitting the technical students from the academic population.

"Culturally, there has been a tension between the academic and skills-based students," he said. "By separating them, will we recreate that tension? I struggle with that."

Trustee Ron Nilson debated the merits of co-locating the new facility next to the Kootenai Technical Education Campus. He said the synergy between the two facilities would benefit taxpayers.

He said the college has spent $300,000 on five different consultants in an effort to determine the size, and location of the project. NIC even went so far as to purchase 40 acres on the Rathdrum Prairie several years ago to accommodate the new facility.

Nilson said many of the concerns raised by the administration and some of the consultants are simply unfounded.

Trustee Todd Banducci agreed with much of what Nilson had to say about the KTEC campus property, and named that as his first choice.

Trustee Christie Wood said she understood Meyer's concerns, but wondered how building the facility in the education corridor might affect plans for a new academic facility NIC wants to share with the University of Idaho and Lewis-Clark State College.

She also said she was intrigued by the notion that the college would be partnering with three school districts and three cities to support the facility.

She said in the past there has been tension between NIC's administration and the KTEC board of trustees, and that would need to be fixed. Nilson said the KTEC board has already discussed that, and is willing to add a board position for an NIC trustee.

After selecting the location, the trustees moved to setting the budget for the facility. Nilson, who was instrumental in securing the funding to build KTEC, made a motion to limit spending on a $15 million, 100,000-square-foot facility.

Wood agreed to the price tag, but wanted to amend the motion to ensure it directed the administration to relocate as many of the seven priority tech programs as possible.

"I just don't want to be back here in two years because we only moved three programs and they need another $15 million," she said.

Banducci agreed and recommended the motion include language that required the relocation of all seven programs.

"I want to start with the highest bar possible," he said, adding the board could amend the motion later if the administration has trouble achieving that goal.

Meyer said she was comfortable setting the policy of spending no more than $15 million, but wanted to give the administration the authority to design where the program would fit best.

The final motion limited spending at $15 million and required the administration to relocate all seven priority programs to the new facility.

That vote also passed 3-1, with Meyer voting no, and Howard saying he would also have voted no on the motion for many of the same reasons Meyer did.

While the board did attempt to debate how the $15 million would be financed, many of the trustees wanted more time to research the options.

NIC President Joe Dunlap reminded the trustees that $500,000 had already been budgeted to get the planning and permitting done for the facility, which would buy them time to conduct more research on financing options.

The board agreed to table that subject until its next scheduled meeting in August.