Resident offers $150,000 and lease to Holy Cross for former school, says board declined proposal in closed session

David Charles, a Green Bay resident who said he purchased the vacant Wequiax School, used the board’s public forum to propose a restricted lease of the building to Holy Cross School and offered the district additional money to resolve outstanding issues.

Charles told the board he had offered to lease the building to Holy Cross for a dollar a year and had proposed safeguards to prevent the private school from "competing" with district enrollment. He said he had initially offered an extra $100,000 to the district and that he would "raise my offer to 150,000" to "make this thing go away" if the district would accept a restricted utilization agreement. Charles said the plan would allow an existing group of students to move without increasing competition for district students.

Charles also said he "reached out to the board a while back" and was told he could not participate in a closed session; he said he later "found out that apparently a vote was taken at the meeting not to even consider the proposal." The presiding board speaker told Charles the board could not engage with him on non-agenda matters during public comment because of open-meeting laws and that they were "prohibited from engaging" with questions during the forum. After public comment, a board member invited Charles to stay and discuss the matter with staff after the meeting.

The board did not vote or take public action on Charles’s request that evening. The transcript records Charles’s offer and his assertion about a prior closed-session vote; the board declined to discuss the claim during open public comment, and no public record or board motion revisiting the sale or lease was recorded in this meeting.