5592358 Resolution 21-193, 1351 Nicholson Street, N.W., Old Brightwood School Lease Amendment Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2015

A RESOLUTION

 

21-193

 

IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 

July 14, 2015

 

 

To declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to approve the disposition by lease of District-owned real property located at 1351 Nicholson Street, N.W., commonly known as the Old Brightwood School and designated for tax and assessment purposes as Lot 0846 in Square 2794.       

 

            RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this resolution may be cited as the “1351 Nicholson Street, N.W., Old Brightwood School Lease Amendment Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2015”. 

 

Sec. 2. (a) On March 1, 2001, the Community Academy Public Charter School, Inc. (“CAPCS”) entered into a lease agreement with the District to lease the property located at 1351 Nicholson Street, N.W. (Lot 0846, Square 2794), which is improved by the Old Brightwood School, for a period of twenty years.

(b) On February 19, 2015, the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board (“PCSB”) voted to revoke the charter of CAPCS at the end of the 2014-2015 school year, with the revocation to occur as of July 1, 2015.  In order to ensure that the students currently enrolled at CAPCS schools are not displaced, PCSB and the Deputy Mayor for Education worked to identify other entities that would be willing and able to assume control over the various CAPCS campuses.  Friendship Public Charter School, Inc. (“Friendship PCS”) agreed to take over the CAPCS campus located at 1351 Nicholson Street, N.W. (the “Nicholson Street Property”) and is stepping in as an assignee of the lease CAPCS had with the District.

(c)  Friendship PCS currently operates nine charter campuses in the District and will expand to eleven with the inclusion of the campus at Nicholson Street and CAPCS’s Armstrong campus.  Of the campuses currently operated by Friendship PCS and tiered on the Public Charter School Board’s Performance Management Framework, three are Tier 1 schools and three are Tier 2 schools.  Friendship PCS plans to achieve this same level of excellence at the Nicholson Street and Armstrong campuses.

 (d) In assuming the lease for the Nicholson Street Property from CAPCS, Friendship PCS has agreed to shoulder responsibility for a $22 million bond that CAPCS originally had for the online campus located at the Nicholson Street campus.  This bond was set to default on June 30, 2015 due to CAPCS’s charter being revoked and its inability to pay for the bond.  In accepting responsibility for this $22 million bond, Friendship PCS seeks to combine the $22 million bond with its current bond assets and is looking to close on these consolidated bonds by the end of August 2015. 

(e)  A condition of Friendship PCS’s ability to close is the approval by the Council of Friendship PCS’s assumption of the Nicholson Street Property lease from CAPCS.  Thus, emergency circumstances exist that necessitate the immediate approval of the District’s lease with Friendship PCS as an assignee of the original lease between the District and CAPCS for the Nicholson Street Property.  If Friendship PCS is delayed in closing on the bond consolidation, it runs the risk of incurring a higher interest rate in the fall, thereby potentially costing the public charter school hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional annual payments.

(f)  On May 18, 2015, Bill 21-201, the “1351 Nicholson Street, N.W., Old Brightwood School Lease Amendment Act of 2015” was introduced by Chairman Mendelson at the request of the Mayor.  The Committee of the Whole held a hearing on July 6, 2015 on Bill 21-201.  This bill will be marked up on July 14, 2015 by the Committee of the Whole, with first reading also occurring on July 14, 2015, but it will not come before the Council for a second reading until late September 2015, after the Council returns from summer recess.  Because Friendship PCS needs this legislation to be approved fully before it can close, an immediate need exists to approve this emergency in addition to the permanent version of this legislation.

 

Sec. 3.  The Council of the District of Columbia determines that the circumstances enumerated in section 2 constitute emergency circumstances making it necessary that the 1351 Nicholson Street, N.W., Old Brightwood School Lease Amendment Emergency Act of 2015 be adopted after a single reading.

 

Sec. 4.  This resolution shall take effect immediately.