October 28, 2025 Historical Nomination Harvey School Meeting
The Board received a notice of the final stage of Historical Nomination from the State of North Dakota.
On October 31, 2025, at 10am to 12:30pm, The ND Historic Preservation Review Board will review the nomination of the Harvey BM Hanson School. This is an honorable nomination if it granted. Harvey BM Hanson School is our last public building owned by the district that qualify. Based on the qualifications, it took several steps and great effort to achieve this moment.
The acceptance of this award opens up grants. There are even grants that will assist us with our portion of the Grant split. Yes, there are restriction on the integrity of the changes. The end product is quality. Currently, we have a school that is "Imminent Danger to our students" per School Board by the paper during bond presentation. The restrictions that they speak of will make sure our school is properly taken care of.
The School board voted NO, on accepting the nomination based on reasoning:
- They did not know it was happening and not enough time to research. This is not true! Vanessa knew, James Mertz knew, Dr. Lukens knew and more. I have email communication between Dr. Lukens and myself on the matter with the Historical Preservation involvement. Dr. Lukens knew and he also was making hard for the needed information. Now, is it anyone else's fault if he did not communicate with the board after them telling him several times in meetings to always tell them and be transparent.
Jim Weinman tried telling the board at meetings (see videos) but they did not want to communicate with public other than their choosing.
- One school system (Devils Lake) was contacted for pros and cons. Surely, a well-used system in ND could produce more information within 3 weeks prior to State meeting.
- Collette is angry with only 2 people who submitted the nomination. The law states if it is public owned building, any public individual can nominate the building. It appears that Collette and the board do not want to have anyone express themselves without their approval. According to the law, anyone can nominate a public building giving them the state contact information for the managers of the property, such as school board member. We did so. The State contacted them right after approving the progressive documents for this stage. It would be useless to contact before it got to this stage because MANY do not make it this far.
- Comments made that they could deny now and maybe later say yes after more research. Education is offered for everyone through the State Historical Preservation. Many calls including community members flooded the State Dept with questions. They just did not like the answers because it did not stop it.
- Why was the board worried about not being able to tear down the building? In the forum, they said they were not going to tear it down.
- Improvements of the district asset can bring the value of the building up.
Watch the CTE Center video. If the building for CTE is of higher value, it is that much better for the district because it decreases the amount in the initial cost to district for starting a CTE Center. Win, Win for everyone.
Whether the Review passes or not, the board needs to stay open for ideals that are different their own. A strong board who is managing our people's property are expected to do that which is best as a whole, instead, they limit opportunities over personal vendettas.
With or without School Board approval, this nomination may go through. Public is allowed to attend on the October 31st in Person at the Heritage Center, Classroom B in Bismarck. Harvey is the first nomination on the Agenda to review. If you cannot attend in person, you can zoom ID 284 740 8790 6511 Passcode CJ6eK7pJ.
If you prefer to attend by phone, call 1-701-328-0950,,606500120#
This nomination was created to assist Harvey to preserve our history and to find avenues of funds for the repair of our school.
