Vallivue’s $5 million land deal is a textbook waste of taxpayer cash | Opinion

The Vallivue School District in Canyon County made a bad deal with even worse optics.

As reported by Idaho Ed News, Vallivue Superintendent Lisa Boyd signed a contract to buy 87 acres of farmland for $5 million — twice what the seller had asked for just months earlier.

The seller, Dave Christensen, had the property listed for 73 days at $2.45 million. No takers.

Even worse, Christensen was a Vallivue school board member for more than a decade, and his son, Clay Christensen, is currently on the board.

Even though the younger Christensen recused himself from discussions and abstained from voting on the proposal, it’s still a bad look. A horrible look.

It’s a prime example of members of a government agency not really caring about how much something costs because it’s not their money.

If you were looking to buy a house, and you saw a house for sale for $250,000 that had been on the market for more than two months with no takers, would you swoop in and make an offer of $500,000?

Of course not. That’s because it’s your money, and you want to look out for your own interests.

In the Vallivue case, though, it’s somebody else’s money: the taxpayers’.

An appraisal after the fact put the value of the property at $2.87 million, still well below what the district paid.

Unfortunately, Boyd is doubling down on the rotten decision.

“It doesn’t say that we have to buy it for that appraised price,” Boyd said. “There’s nothing in the statute that says that.”

She’s referring to Idaho Statute 33-601, which says before a district can purchase land, trustees need have the property appraised, and that “shall be used to establish the value.”

Boyd didn’t do that. Doesn’t she think it would be a good idea to have it appraised beforehand and follow the statute?

“And every piece of property and house around here nowadays, as you know,” Boyd said, “many, many things go for well over appraisal because that’s what happens with the demand that’s out there right now.”

Yeah, if there’s a bidding war.

Not when a house or piece of property sits on the market for 73 days and doesn’t sell.

We won’t argue that the land might be ideal for the district’s needs, as Boyd points out. It’s level, is close to other schools, has no canals through it, it’s in a part of the county where a new school is needed and it’s big enough for two schools.

We also can understand the argument that the fast-growing school district is looking eight to 15 years down the road when it will actually build on the land. By then, $5 million might seem like a deal. But the land was bought now.

We are reminded of the decision by the College of Western Idaho in April 2015 to purchase 10 acres of land in Boise at the corner of Main Street and Whitewater Park Boulevard for $8.8 million, more than twice the assessed value.

Much was made at the time of the discrepancy between the price and the assessment. Now, some 11 years later, buying that lot for $8.8 million seems like a good deal.

But could CWI have gotten a better deal at the time? Could Vallivue have gotten a better deal?

Given the circumstances, the answer is, “yes.”

Unfortunately, in both cases, we may never know.

And since it wasn’t their hard-earned money at stake, Vallivue district officials didn’t even seem to bother to try to find out, making the whole thing reek of a sweetheart deal for one of their own.

Statesman editorials are the opinion of the Idaho Statesman’s editorial board. Board members are opinion editor Scott McIntosh, opinion writer Bryan Clark, editor Chadd Cripe, assistant editor Jim Keyser and community members John Hess, Debbie McCormick and Julie Yamamoto.