More than a year of controversy over 15 acres of unused Mount Olivet Cemetery land ended Tuesday as the Salt Lake Board of Education and the Mount Olivet Cemetery Association Board agreed on an 85-year lease for $1.5 million.
The school board previously considered condemning the land, wanting to use it for a football stadium, athletic fields and parking lot for East High School. But board members decided an amicable lease agreement would be better.The two boards have been at odds over whether the land should be purchased or leased, what its value is and what a fair price would be. Talks have bogged down and resumed repeatedly for months.
The lease could be extended beyond 85 years, depending on the cemetery's needs, said school board member Roger Thompson, who helped negotiate the deal.
School board member D. Kent Michie objected to leasing, saying that it made better fiscal sense to buy the land and let the cemetery association have first chance to repurchase it later.
"It is in the best interest of our district to own this property," Michie said, adding that this could create unfortunate problems for future school boards.
Michie prepared a written objection and tried unsuccessfully to get the board to consider condemning the land, but first making one final offer to buy it from the cemetery board - with $100,000 over the appraised price as a gesture of goodwill.
However, Thompson said there was uncertainty over whether the cemetery board actually could sell the property since it originally received the land from the U.S. government. It is possible both boards would need an act of Congress to keep the property from reverting to federal ownership if it were sold.
Thompson said East High needs more room because its 18-acre site is far below the average 30- or 40-acre high school site. There also is very little undeveloped land in the area and what is there would require a lot of money and effort to obtain, he said.
The board voted 6-1 for the leasing agreement, with Michie casting the dissenting vote.
Later, Mary Dawn Coleman, past president of the cemetery board, praised the lease arrangement. She said it will give the cemetery board money to maintain and improve the existing cemetery but still allows room for cemetery expansion since this particular piece of land won't be needed for at least 100 years.