Orange County NC Website
Commissioner Jacobs said that if the southern part of the district is a high priority <br />but the school board is willing to abandon that to build an Eubanks Road rather than <br />abandon the sprawl model. He said that it is almost as if wanting to have everything <br />has forced the process to go slower. He said that if we are going to be sa wedded to <br />the sprawl model that we have to go build it on Eubanks Road we have defeated the <br />highest priority, which is the southern part of the district. This is why he is perplexed. <br />Chair Brown said that the sprawl model could not fit on the Eubanks Road site. <br />In her conversations with both mayors, they did not see a problem with expanding the <br />bus service. <br />Chair Brown made reference to the High School Planning Task Force and said <br />that this could be reestablished to work on the urbanization and land planning issues. <br />Commissioner Gordon said that the school board is charged with making these <br />decisions and they are calling this a comprehensive high school. She said that it seems <br />that the ball is in the school board's court to come back with a proposal and answers to <br />our questions. <br />Chair Brown said that her paint is still that the Chair and Vice Chair can work with <br />the High School Planning Task Force to try and deal with these issues as soon as <br />possible. <br />Gloria Foley said that they would like to have a 1,000-student high school in one <br />place and a 500-student high school in another and not a 2,000-student high school. <br />The question they still have is whether urban schools and urban services would be able <br />to support the students. <br />Chair Brown made reference to SAPFO and Mayor Nelson's letter and said that <br />one of the issues that had not been anticipated was the length of time it takes school <br />systems to site the needed facilities. This could put the County in a position of being <br />out of compliance with adequate public facilities. She asked Planning Director Craig <br />Benedict to explain what happened at Carrboro's meeting. <br />Craig Benedict said that the concerns were mainly with the CIP, mainly for the <br />high school that showed that there would be two years of an over-capacity situation. <br />Carrboro wants the Board to clarify the capital financing piece. <br />John Link said that the ten-year CIP usually has the funding for the first 5-6 years <br />in place. The question is how the County can guarantee that it will carry forward the <br />commitment to fund priority projects. His response has been and still is that aver the <br />last 15 years the County Commissioners, the school boards, and the citizens have <br />successfully passed four referenda, and using other sources of revenue, the County has <br />financed $277 million in capital projects for schools. He thinks that the past experience <br />has demonstrated the County's ability and commitment to fund projects in the future. <br />He said that we could not possibly have the total funding available far something ten <br />years from now. <br />Chair Brown read from the letter from Mayor Nelson, as follows: "Two weeks <br />ago the school system acknowledged that the planned new high school would not be <br />open on schedule. Our understanding is that without this school opening on time, the <br />high school sector will be over capacity by 86 students for 2005 and 230 students in <br />2005-2006." She gets confused by all of these numbers. She would like to pin down <br />these numbers. <br />