Minutes - 20030224 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

reports. This review should include location of the projected school population, traffic impact and potential injuries, time wasted by students and parents in longer bus or car rides, increased environmental pollution due to longer bus or car rides, better academic outcomes when parents are involved in a neighborhood school, health benefits from exercise due to increased walking and bike riding to attend a neighborhood school, and the need far sidewalks and bike lanes to accommodate such healthy modes of transportation. He further suggested that the Board direct the County Manager to explore funding alternatives for the extra costs associated with the Rock Haven Road site. Examples include an increase of $1,000 in the impact fee charged in the school district, use of existing bond capacity or bank loans, or use of projected growth and sales tax revenue. Etta Pisano urged the Board to help the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board to swiftly locate the much-needed additional high school in the south part of the County -ideally south of Franklin Street. She understands that there will be 1,500 high school aged kids living south of Franklin Street in the next five years. This issue needs to be addressed before the merger issue and the issues should be kept separate. She asked the Board to address the high school issue first. Margaret Campion said that she has formed no opinion on merger of the two school systems. She said that there is not a lot of time left to site the third high school in Chapel Hill-Carrboro. She agreed with the last two speakers. Leslie Lotina is one of the Co-Presidents of McDougle Elementary School. She shared a resolution that was passed in the February PTA meeting. In summary, the resolution states that the McDougle Elementary School PTA strongly supports the effort of the CHCCS Board to site the third high school in the southern end of town. Jay Bryan serves on a task force that is looking at the development of the Eubanks Road schooVpark site. He said that the County Commissioners set up a work group to look at a plan for this and this concept plan has come to his group with 77 acres allotted for a school site and 120 acres for a park. His understanding was that until difficulties came with regard to siting the other high school site in the southern part of the County, the intention of the school board was to locate a middle school and an elementary school on this site. He supports this as an idea. He asked the County Commissioners to confine the study to the 77 acres for a high school and keep the acreage divided. b. Matters on the Printed Agenda (These matters were considered as the Board addressed the items an the agenda below.) 3. BOARD COMMENTS Commissioner Gordon said that the Transportation Advisory Committee met and the conformity expires on February 28t" and the lapse will continue until August/September. Commissioner Gordon reported that on February 13`", there was a meeting of the Chapel Hill Township and Educational Campus group and they talked about functions. The Schools and Land Use Council met on February 19t", and they gat the information from Carrboro that they have some questions about middle school and high school funding. Commissioner Gordon made reference to the TTA retreat on February 19t". The cost of phase one now exceeds the revenue and they may need to look at new fare policies. Phase two includes the airport connection and 15-501, but there is a question about whether it should include 54/1-40. The point is that some board members think that phase two is yet to be defined. Commissioner Jacobs thanked Congressman Price. He said that the Board had atone point considered hiring an intermediary to lobby in congress on behalf of Orange County for federal funds and decided instead that the County Manager, Chair, and Vice-Chair would meet with Congressman Price and make some proposals based on some of the agricultural and community development needs. Congressman Price was able to secure almost $1 million in federal funds - $90,000 for a shelter for the Hillsborough Farmer's Market and $900,000 for water and sewer infrastructure for Buckhorn Road. Commissioner Jacobs reported that the 5`" Annual Agricultural Summit was held today and it was well attended. Commissioner Jacobs congratulated Dr. Rasie Summers because there was an unexpected quality control test on the Health Department and there was a good report.