Cape Girardeau School Board OKs contract with Coca-Cola to help fund scoreboard

No Pepsi. Coke.

Cape Girardeau Central High School's events stadium, slated for completion before the new school year begins, will be supplied exclusively by Coca-Cola. The five-year cold drink contract will help pay for the stadium's high-tech scoreboard, but it also created some heat at Thursday's special school board meeting.

The Cape Girardeau School Board approved the agreement on a 4-1 vote. Paul Nenninger was the lone dissenting vote, with board president Stacy Kinder, Phil Moore, Kyle McDonald and Don Call voting in favor of the motion. Board members Luther Bonds and Tony Smee were not in attendance.

Under the agreement, Coca-Cola Refreshments USA Inc., will be the exclusive beverage supplier of the new stadium's concessions, beginning Aug. 1, 2012. Coke would make a $50,000 donation for the purchase of the stadium's digital scoreboard, estimated to cost as much as $175,000.

The Cape Girardeau Public Schools Foundation will take out a loan to cover the cost of the scoreboard, financing the borrowing through advertisement revenue. As of Thursday afternoon, the foundation had commitments from local businesses to fill four of six panels on the big scoreboard.

Supporters see the arrangement as a sweet deal, providing the high school with a state-of-the-art scoreboard while keeping the district -- and therefore taxpayer -- dollars out of an extracurricular purchase.

"I am most appreciative of the foundation and the board of education," Central principal Mike Cowan said following the board's vote. "This has been a joint venture, and it has been a pleasure seeing everyone come together in support of Cape Central."

The soft drink deal left a bad taste in Nenninger's mouth.

He's concerned that the district is giving up an asset, the scoreboard, and its revenue possibilities, without a definitive agreement with the foundation.

"Based on the current economy, the district should always protect whatever income sources there are out there," Nenninger said.

"It's not that we're giving up something; I think we're getting something -- the opportunity to have a very nice scoreboard," superintendent Jim Welker said, adding that there isn't enough money in the school improvement bond fund to pay for the scoreboard.

"You're missing the point," McDonald told Nenninger. The foundation "will only make enough revenue to pay for the scoreboard. Once it's paid for, any revenue would go to the booster club or the high school or the district."

But Cowan and others said those details have yet to be finalized.

Moore wondered what all the fuss was about.

"I would think that's something you negotiate once it's paid for," he said, in a curt exchange. "They're doing all the upfront cash to give us a gift. Accept the gift, put it on our ground, then seven years from now if it doesn't work out we'll unbolt it and they can take it away."

Amy McDonald, the foundation's executive director and wife of board member Kyle McDonald, said the not-for-profit has one purpose.

"The foundation raises money to put back into the school district," she said following the meeting. "We are here to raise funds for education and other school needs."

Nenninger also questions what he sees as the behind-the-scenes meetings between the foundation and some school board members in the months leading up to the vote. Kinder said the meetings weren't on the record. Nenninger said they should have been because business was conducted on behalf of the district.

The district's 10-year, campuswide beverage contract with Pepsi and Coke ends July 2012. So for now, at the high school, it's Coke and Pepsi.

mkittle@semissourian.com

388-3627

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301 N. Clark Ave. Cape Girardeau, MO

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