Orange County NC Website
commitment for physical activity. She said that by putting children on school buses, their <br />time is limited to be physically active. <br />Etta Pisano asked the County Commissioners to fund the site as requested by the CHCCS <br />Board on the Rock Haven Road site. She said that this would save lots of time and cars <br />and would help the environment. She said that it is the strong feeling in the community that <br />the school should be big enough to serve the needs beyond atwo-year limit. She said that <br />the money should be moved from Elementary School #10 to High School #3 because they <br />made a mistake when they voted for the bond and they should have voted for a high school <br />instead of an elementary school. She pointed out that the Orange County 1999 construction <br />standards were not realistic. She said that these standards were exceeded at Cedar Ridge. <br />She said that this is a tough jab for the County Commissioners, but that they should be able <br />to find the money. She does not understand why it costs $425,000 to plan an animal shelter <br />and another $2 million to build it. She said that she is willing to have her taxes raised. She <br />thinks the Manager's recommended budget is conservative. She also thinks that the debt <br />limit could be raised to avoid cutting services. <br />Michael Kelly is a citizen of Chapel Hill. He said that he will not be sending his children to <br />this school, but the CHCCS Board has made a clear and compelling argument to have the <br />third high school in the southern part of the county. He said that the two existing high <br />schools could not be expanded without compromising the quality of education that is <br />delivered. The population of Chapel Hill and Orange County supported bands for <br />educational needs and this is one of them. He pointed out that the most responsible way of <br />decreasing the needs far transportation for a high school is to place the high school closest <br />to the students. He made reference to the graph an the debt limit and asked if it included all <br />debt or only debt that was currently due. Rod Visser said that the $113 million that he <br />referred to is phased in over asix-year period, through 2007-2008. <br />Matthew Barton said that he was once on a bond committee and it was made clear to them <br />that the financing for educational needs would not be met by that one bond. He tried to <br />estimate how much extra mileage would be driven if the school were to be sited on Eubanks <br />Road as opposed to Rock Haven Road. He distributed the handout with the estimate to the <br />County Commissioners. Using an approximation of 3.5 extra miles each way to get to the <br />Eubanks Road site, the estimate was 714,000 miles of extra driving in the year. He <br />estimated that 600 students would be riding the bus out of the 1,000. The estimated cost of <br />the extra mileage would be $176,000 per year. He spoke in favor of the Rock Haven Road <br />site and asked the County Commissioners to approve the proposal by the CHCCS Board. <br />Judy Margolis submitted a petition of over 500 people to support the purchase of the Rock <br />Haven Road site for the third high school. She read the petition. The petition asks the <br />County Commissioners to vote to fully fund the Rock Haven Road site. She said that she <br />has been on the Eubanks Road school/park site and that there is not room there to build a <br />high school because it is steep, rocky, and is broken up by stream buffers. There would be <br />substantial site development costs including water and sewer. She made reference to the <br />Glover land estimate of $3 million and said that this was based on this land being rezoned <br />by Carrboro. She said that she has heard that Carrboro had no intention of rezoning this <br />land, so it changes the value of this land. She read same comments off of the petition and <br />said that people are very passionate about this. <br />Bobby Clapp said that it seems to him that there are three variables -timing, facilities and <br />location. The longer we wait on the location, the more overcrowded the current high schools <br />