Additional Transparency for Property Sales in Elmbrook

Property sales will now appear on agendas for discussion to allow community input.

Thanks to community engagement on 8/9/22, Elmbrook updated their process regarding property sales and transparency.

Future property sales will now appear on Board agendas for discussion to allow community input, and if input is significant, it may trigger a Town Hall style forum, similar to what happened when the District tried to implement equity, not equality in May 2021. The District also created a website with information on their properties which will also list any properties for sale.

On 6/14/22 when discussing Policy 3270 regarding the sale of property owned by the District, Linda Boucher stated (3:01:41) that “The School District doesn’t own that property solely. The taxpayers of the School District own that property as well as the entire School District.”

Linda Boucher advocated for notifying the community in a clearer manner that the District is looking at selling a property to allow for discussion and feedback with the community. Kathy Lim pointed out on 8/9/22 (49:10) that "we are elected officials [...] and if you were to build a task force, which is two people, that is lesser representation. I think it's just the right thing to do."

Notably, Finance & Operations (F&O) committee members - Jian Sun, Jean Lambert and Jennifer Roskopf - did not appear to support additional transparency based on their comments in the June and August Board meetings.

Despite transparency being once of Elmbrook's core values, on 8/9/22 a community member brought up that “in the last two board meetings, the board has kinda struggled with the issue of disclosure of school properties for sale” and a lack of updates to policies regarding conflicts of interest.

Update: The original district website to disclose property sales appears has been moved and is now listed under the “District Facilities & Capital Projects” tab.