By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
Bowling Green City Council is offering the city school district some land and some moral support as the district nears its bond issue on the November ballot.
Council heard the first reading of an ordinance Tuesday evening that would allow city leaders to donate about nine acres of land to the school district to ease traffic at the proposed elementary school planned off Fairview Avenue.
And council heard Mayor Dick Edwards take a strong stand in support of the bond issue for a new school.
“As a community, we simply must look and plan ahead,” the mayor said. “The delays in moving forward to address the acute needs and important issues confronting our school system have unfortunately hurt our community and put us at a distinct disadvantage with neighboring communities.”
Council President Mike Aspacher echoed the sentiment.
“I think all of us have come to understand how very important it is that we come together and support our schools,” Aspacher said.
Both men asked others to rally around the school district as it goes on the November ballot.
“This is so overwhelmingly important for our community. We simply must move forward,” Edwards said.
The land donation to the school district received some support Tuesday evening from citizens of the Ashbury Hills neighborhood – located to the west of the proposed new elementary.
Michael French, a member of the Ashbury Hills Association, expressed the organization’s support of the land transfer to the schools. But he voiced concern about a city ditch in the area, suggesting that it be cleaned out prior to the transfer to the school district.
French also asked that the city look into the possibility of an additional access being added for Ashbury Hills, which currently only has one entrance off Brim Road.
Another citizen at Tuesday’s meeting, Bud Henschen, expressed some confusion over the possible “land swap” between the city and school district. Aspacher explained there was no swap, but just a transfer of land to the district.
Superintendent Francis Scruci and Board of Education President Ginny Stewart thanked City Council for being part of the welcoming party as students entered school on their first day back last month – and for the land transfer.
The acreage being offered is located northwest of the existing middle and high schools.
“The city really doesn’t have a use for the land,” Assistant Municipal Administrator Joe Fawcett said last week.
There are two parcels that may be transferred:
- Nearly six acres that were part of a land acquisition by the city in 1993, presumably for economic development purposes. That acreage sits just east of the Ashbury Hills housing development, and has a strip about 60 feet wide that stretches north to Van Camp Road, just east of the Wood County Humane Society.
- Three acres purchased by the city’s Board of Public Utilities in 2002, just to the east of the other city parcel. This land was bought in connection with a study and proposal on the Toussaint Creek Story Water Detention Basin. The board did not pursue the project, and the acreage has been rented out for farming since then.
City officials have decided that neither parcel is needed, and are recommending that the acreage be transferred to the school board “in the event that a new elementary school is built on its West Poe Road campus.”
It is proposed that the land be given to the district at no cost.
“The citizens have already paid for this land,” during the initial purchases, Fawcett said.
The acreage can be used for parking and to improve traffic flow in the area, by giving additional access from Van Camp Road. The proposed elementary would already have access from Fairview Avenue.
“This would just give us more flexibility to make drop-offs and pick-ups easier,” Scruci said last week. “It will just make the logistics of traffic flow much better.”
Currently, the high school parking lot is accessed from West Poe Road, and the middle school from Fairview Avenue. The proposed elementary school acreage also has access to Fairview – but additional access to Van Camp would be helpful, Scruci said – especially since approximately 90 percent of Bowling Green students are dropped off at school by buses, daycare transportation, or parents’ vehicles.
If the bond issue for the new elementary school is approved by voters on the November ballot, the school district will have a traffic study conducted to see if a turn lane, similar to the lane at the middle school, is warranted on Fairview for the elementary.
It is not yet known if the traffic to and from Fairview and Van Camp will be restricted to one-way, Scruci said.
“The final logistics of the traffic flow we wouldn’t decide until later,” he said.
