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School in a Dilemma

Sunday March 7 2010

A dilemma is a situation in which all possible outcomes have unfavorable consequences. That is now the situation facing Incarnate Word here in SA. I have given up trying to link to the on line SA Express, but if you have the Sunday paper, this is a front page article. Now

the City has occupied a piece of land between the Zoo and Incarnate Word since 1920. 

Now IW wants it for an art building and fencing center

but, the head of the Zoo Conservancy will not hear of that

The Mayor 'only an activity that is consistent with nature is proper for this site' 

The President of IW notes it has essentially been a storage and dump for many years…

the President of IW wants a 50 year lease

The Zoo Board notes that is longer than most of us will be alive, sounds like a sale to them, 

and that is where I am going, a capital lease is essentially a sale in that the lessee has the property for 75% of its life, in this case it is the lives of the people that are the issue.

IW is land locked, beats me….

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2 responses to “School in a Dilemma”

  1. Tammy Salinas Avatar
    Tammy Salinas

    What gets me is, wouldn’t the city not mind a 50 year lease? I mean wont this money go into the city and give them more money to get the economy going even faster? This art facility could actually do good for the zoo, perhaps give the young artists more of a natured feeling and perhaps can spark new work?

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  2. Dennis Elam Avatar
    Dennis Elam

    The issue here is the greater good, the zoo or the art school for IW. What I was emphasizing is that current thinking in government is that nature is superior to man, note the comment by the mayor about the sanctity of parks, but as the Pres of IW points out, that has certainly not been a concern since 1920, only now that he actually wants to do something with it. So we have not one but two land locked institutions IW and the Zoo, face to face in an ever more crowded area. Imagine what it would cost to move either one to the edge of the City, which is where A & M will be…..

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