The sponsor of a bill to build a temporary Simon Sanchez High School campus across the street from the original Yigo school site has questioned another proposed site that the Guam Department of Education is considering, the Tumon Bay Mall.
“What is the conditions in Tumon? Because we already know in Yigo it’s an open field. Clear it, drop buildings, put in infrastructure, it’s done,” Sen. Joe San Agustin said in an interview with the PDN Monday.
San Agustin’s Bill 313-37, co-sponsored by Sen. Roy Quinata, would amend the law to include “schools” as part of the authorized uses of a Guam Housing Corp. property in Yigo so that it could be turned into a temporary campus for the 1,600 Sanchez High students who were forced into double sessions at John F. Kennedy High School last school year due to severe damage to their Yigo campus by Typhoon Mawar.
GDOE Superintendent Erik Swanson shared the possibility of leasing the Tumon Bay Mall, located across the street from the Crowne Plaza Resort, with the Guam Education Board last week.
The unfinished building was acquired back in 2010 by Philippine billionaire Lucio Tan’s Grandview Development Corp. for $20.5 million, PDN files show.
“We’re gonna crowd Tumon with school buses. Parents will have to drive from Yigo to drop off and pick up students. If they’re in Yigo it’s a done deal, they’re there,” San Agustin, a former GDOE board member, said.
It will cost an estimated $25 million a year for GDOE to lease the Tumon property, at $5 million a year over an expected lease term of five to seven years, according to cost estimates Swanson sent to the Guam Recovery Office.
The cost to build modular units on 15 acres of GHC property across the old campus will cost $17.2 million, plus more for site and civil work.
Swanson has said that GDOE is working on a memorandum of agreement with the GHC on the lease.
San Agustin said unlike the potential Tumon Mall lease with a private owner, “ours is simple, it’s GovGuam to GovGuam.”
He also questioned the condition of the building, which he said has been dormant for years.
“What deal is there in Tumon?” San Agustin said. “I just hope there’s no hidden agenda there.”
GDOE’s Swanson has said they want to move the Sanchez students out of double sessions at JFK High School to a temporary campus by this December.
(2) comments
So GovGuam is going to spend money to lease private property and then hope to get FEMA to build the school??? Utilize GovGuam property!
If I were a SSHS student, I'll pick Tumon over some WW2 type facility.
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