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School letter irks Orange officials
Elected officials cry foul over attempt to halt plans for new middle school in OrangeDate published: 2/1/2008 BY ROBIN KNEPPER Orange County's two homegrown political action committees of being accused of using pressure tactics to try to derail plans for a new middle school near Lake of the Woods. Last week, LOW residents received a letter citing concerns about high-voltage power lines running through the school site. It says the Board of Supervisors is "one vote short of being able to correct this enormous mistake" of planning a middle school on land at State Routes 20 and 601 in the northeastern corner of the county. The three-page letter was signed by two mothers who want a new elementary school on State Route 3. The envelope carries a return address for the Orange County Citizens Committee. The Jan. 21 letter urges LOW residents to call their newly elected Supervisor Lee Frame "and tell him it is his responsibility as your elected official to PROTECT OUR CHILDREN and the proposed school site is unacceptable." It encourages recipients to call Supervisors Teri Pace and Zack Burkett for more information. Frame called this latest effort to scuttle the school plans "payback" by Marcia Landau, Burkett's wife and principal of the Orange County Taxpayers Alliance. The OCTA has been financially supported by the Orange County Citizens Committee. "Marcia said she'd do this to me after we voted on this at the first supervisors' meeting," Frame said in a telephone interview this week. Landau hung up when contacted by The Free Lance-Star and did not return a subsequent phone message seeking comment. Jack Snyder, treasurer of the Orange County Citizens Committee, did not return a call seeking comment. At the first meeting of the new board, Burkett attempted to get supervisors to revisit financing for the new school, which was approved by the previous board. In a separate motion, Pace tried to get the work stopped until she gets her questions about what she called "inconsistent" enrollment projections answered. Burkett and Pace supported each other, but the majority of the five-member board voted to move along with the school design.
Date published: 2/1/2008
And no... you are playing politics with this...
(posted by
ianrod
, Feb. 3, 2008 10:13 pm)
The land is purchased, the building is planned, they are starting to clear the land. Now you and your cronies want to stop the work... who's playing politics here? What's your agenda? My agenda is simple... 2 years for a new school if we continue down this road... 4 to 5 years if we stop and let the PACs win. Get the school built and get the children out of those nasty trailers ASAP! Our tax base in this county won't accept a full market value piece of land for a school. Let's take what we have.
You don't get it...
(posted by
ianrod
, Feb. 3, 2008 10:12 am)
You don't get mold out of a trailer. You don't get asbestos out of a trailer. Ask FEMA about that...
Then perhaps
(posted by
DeeUtz68
, Feb. 3, 2008 7:35 am)
Instead of trying to make a political issuse out of it, we need to come together as a whole for the children and get a solution NOW! A new school will still take about 2 years to build.. So, why don't we work on finding a solution to the mold problem in the trailers. Something that perhaps with professional help we can fix in a much shorter period of time. If we try working together instead of against each other we could solve this problem.
And just because...
(posted by
ianrod
, Feb. 2, 2008 8:47 am)
If I remember correctly, the way they would have needed to put in a housing development there would have required several homes much closer to the electric wires then a single structure will be. And if you are wondering why it didn't go commercial, take a look around, we have a bunch of commercial real estate open in this county right now standing vacant. Our kids are getting sick and are not safe in the trailers now. We need this school now, not after another 2-3 yrs of committees.
We could expand the existing school...
(posted by
ianrod
, Feb. 2, 2008 8:41 am)
If there weren't so many trailers in the way now. To expand the schools we have will require time and class rooms to be shut down. The high school I attended was expanded while I was there. It shut down wings of the building for construction and safety for over a year at a time. The trailers in the way make it almost impossible to do the construction at this time. All this should have been thought of when all the new construction was put up plans should have been in place then for expansion.
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