Holland school building will be demolished

A vacant school facility in Holland that has been closed for over 50 years will in all likelihood be torn down after city officials accepted a bid for the purchase of the property at a recent meeting.
           
According to the minutes, Gale and Dixie Venenga, who reside in the community, have offered the city $7,600, and the agreement comes with the stipulation that the building be demolished. No one showed up to object during a public hearing on April 3, and Mayor Scott Borchardt told The Grundy Register that the council firmly felt it was the only reasonable course of action.
           
“When you look at how much it would’ve cost the city (to restore it), we just couldn’t justify it,” he said, before referencing his city’s low tax rate. “People are going to Grundy (Center), but for us to have those sorts of nice things, we don’t have them. We save them for the bigger things that government may impose on us… It may look like we don’t care about the school, but we just don’t have the money.”
           
Council members Jerry Schoolman and Chuck Kruse attended the school before its closure (both transferring to Grundy Center), and Schoolman likened the decision to cutting an old tree.
           
“You don’t like to do it, but if it’s splitting and coming apart, you’ve got to do it,” he said. 
 
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