Verbatim Trans. 6-27-90 10.A.VEP. BATIM TRANSCRIPT OF ITEM 10.A., PUBLIC ~R. ARING TO CONSIDER
AMENDMENT TO TN 1989-90 BUDGET TO APPROPRIATE $2,000,000 FOR ~
PURPOSE OF ~CREASING TN SCgOOL BOARD BODGET FOR TH~. PURCHASE OF
Ms. Dolezal: Item 10, Public Hearing - A - to consider an
amendment to the 1989-90 Budget to appropriate $2,000,000
for the purpose of increasing the School Board Budget for
the purchase of land. Mr. Stegmaier.
Mr. Stegmaier: Mr. Chairman and members of the Board, this date
had been set for a public hearing on the appropriation of
$2,000,000 for the purchase of a site for the northern area
high school. Under the State Code, any amendment which
exceeds half a million dollars requires a public hearing.
This is a public hearing, Mr. Chairman, and Mr. Fulghum is
here and prepared to give a brief summary presentation
regarding the purchase of this site.
Mr. Currin: I think it might be advisable if Mr. Fulghum made
his presentation ..... are you prepared at this time to make
a presentation now?
Mr. Fulghum: Yes.
Mr. Currin: I think it would be good to do that now so that
the Board .... again, the whole Board can see your presenta-
tion as well as all the citizens.
Mr. Applegate: Sonny, can we take a five minute break?
Mr. Currin: Mr. Fulghum, I have been requested to take a five
minute break before you start so .....
The Board generally agreed to recess for five minutes.
Reconvening:
Mr. Currin:
Mr. Fulghum:
Mr. Currin:
Call the meeting back to order.
you ready?
Mr. Fulghum, are
I hope so Mr. Chairman.
Alright, sir.
Mr. Fulghum: Members of the Board, Mr. Ramsey. I have been
asked to do a brief overview of the school site search
process and how we arrived at the point that we are at
today. It was during the 1986-87 school year that we began
to put together information for the development of the Six
Year Capital Improvement Program and one of the early things
that were identified in that was that we were headed for
overcrowded conditions at both Midlothian and Monacan High
Schools and that relief for those facilities was something
that needed to be addressed. The thing that we noticed at
that point was the large number of students at high school
age that were north of Route 60 and no high school
facilities in that area at that particular point. That
situation has progressed until today the number of students
north of 60, grades 9 through 12, is possibly 2,000
students. About 1,500 of those students in 9 through 12
live in the Robious Middle School attendance area and
another 500 living within this area served by Midlothian
Middle School. And of course the, as we look at the
development of the Capital Improvements Program, the
information put together in 86-87 and the first version of
the Capital Improvements Program that came out in early 1987
identified needs with costs estimated at about $243.9
million for the total needs identified and as members of
this Board are fully aware there was a rather extensive
process of looking at those needs, looking a financial
resources available and beginning to establish priorities as
to what projects would be included in the 1988 Bond issue.
It was not until June of 1988 that that Bond issue package
was actually finalized and that we actually were sure that a
high school north of 60 was included because several
alternatives had been reviewed up until that point. Some of
those alternatives included a northern area high school and
some did not. But it was actually in June of 1988 that that
issue was finalized. Following that date, and there had
been some additional - some preliminary work done prior to
that date but following that date and up until February 27,
1990, at least 16 sites were reviewed. There had been
additional sites that had been brought to our attention and
have been evaluated since February 27th. Of the at least 20
sites that have been reviewed to date, including several
suggestions that we take a look at the possible utilization
of Huguenot High School which is located in the City of
Richmond, that facility has been looked at - that school
sits on a site of 26 acres; it has a capacity of, program
capacity of approximately 1,050 to 1,100 students which is
about 55% of the capacity that we are trying to achieve in
this particular area. Now on February 27, 1990, as you are
aware, the School Board after determining that we were not
able to come up with a site that met our Budget requirements
and that would allow us to maintain the Fall of 1992
schedule that we were trying to achieve opted to consider
placing additions at four existing high schools - mainly,
Midlothian, Monacan, Clover Hill and Bird. As I have shown
in the handout that has been provided for each of the Board
members, that decision and that proposal did not meet well
with members of the community. There were several community
meetings and there was quite a bit of effort on the part of
the community to make both the School Board and the Board of
Supervisors aware of their concerns and their preferences
and as you are aware in April, or on April 10th, in a
Liaison Committee meeting between the School Board and the
Board of Supervisors, it was indicated that we should
revisit the site acquisition process to look at the priority
sites, provide more detailed information and that, while
there was no definite promise at that point, it was
indicated that there might be consideration for some
additional funding for a northern area high school. And of
course we began immediately to work with the County staff
and with our staff to prioritize sites among the places that
had previously been considered and after that analysis on
the part of both the staffs and refining some of the cost
data we had two Executive Sessions between the two Boards
which finally resulted in a decision to pursue the purchase
of the Riverton site which would include not only the
northern area high school but a northern area elementary
school where we had also not been successful in nailing down
a specific site for that but also included in the 1988 Bond
Issue were plans for a Midlothian area park facility and
that issue was still open. So it was the decision to pursue
the Riverton site actually addressed site acquisition for
all three of these public facilities. There were several
sites that were considered for high school use that met the
location requirements for a high school, or the acreage
requirements for a high school, that could not accommodate
the elementary school or were not appropriately located for
park facilities. Really, the Riverton site that we looked
at is the only site that accommodated all three, being
geographically located to meet the attendance area require-
ments for the elementary school and the high school. The,
as I indicated earlier, there was cost data developed by the
staffs. I would point out that the road improvements that
w~re projected for Robious Road are figures that we worked
very closely with the County transportation staff in prepar-
ing those figures; we worked directly with the Utilities
Department on the water line extension figures and as of
this date we still feel comfortable with the projected
budgets that were presented to the Board to deal with those
two particular issues. There had been questions raised
about the, of course, the value of the land, and I would
point out to the Board that when we started, the first time
we looked at the Riverton site as a school staff and looking
along with the County staff for potential joint use for
parks goes back to about a year ago. It was during the
month of July that we began discussion; we had our first
site plan as to how facilities could fit on that property
was dated August 1, 1989. And at that particular time, we
looked at a scene that utilized the entire site for parks
and potentially three schools. Following that information,
we also had a wetlands expert, Mr. Lee Mallonee, do a
preliminary check of that information to give us some
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indications of what the site conditions were and what we
might have to deal with in that particular regard. And when
we get to, as I mentioned earlier, the value of the property
it was about the same time that we were working with Mr.
Mallonee and the wetland conditions we asked for an
appraisal of 90 acres of the property which would be 20
acres for an elementary school and 70 acres for a high
school. And yesterday made available to Mr. Ramsey for
review by members of the Board a copy of the appraisal that
was received on that 90 acres and as you are aware from that
information the appraisal for the full 318 acre site was
$6.5 million; the opinion of the appraiser of the value to
take 90 acres considering damage to the residue was a total
of $3,510,000 for a 90 acre parcel. And as you are aware,
the process of negotiation and the arrival at the $4 million
price includes an additional 60 acres with 650 feet of river
frontage for park use. It might be of interest for those
that have not done the calculations that the per acre value
assigned based on the appraisal for the 90 acres was $39,000
an acre and the value based on the negotiated price for 150
acres was $26,667 an acre. At this point, I would like to
call on Mr. Joseph Cuicci of the Moseley Group to review
with the Board the site plan as it exists today after
reviewing all the data that we have looked at and are
continuing to look at and will continue to look at during
the review period that will be provided in a purchase
agreement to determine usability and cost for the site. And
Mr. Cuicci will also be able to call upon Mr. Mallonee to
make a statement to the Board relative to the wetlands
situation. At this time I would defer to Mr. Cuicci.
Mr. C~icci: Gentlemen, this is portion of the site, a portion
of the Riverton site that is being considered by the School
Board. The land stands from Robious Road in this area right
here approximately a mile - about 5,000 feet down to the
river right here; about 650 would be on the river; the
Riverton Subdivision would be in this area; the land in the
area of the remainder of the Riverton Subdivision is rather
hilly and beyond that it is even more steep with a terrain
that is very difficult but down in this area the terrain is
very moderate; the fall from Robious Road to the river over
a mile, almost a mile, is just 100 feet so that is
approximately 2-3% grade along the way, except for a very
small area right in this area here. The proposal for
developing this site is for the school to have, the
school .... to have the elementary school here in this area;
the high school right here; and a passive park in this area
right here with the outlet on the river to have a boat ramp
with approximately four or more ramps, a fishing pier,
nature trails, shelters, and a nature center with ample
parking to take care of all that. So this is roughly a
passive park. Connected to the passive park would be the
various playing fields that are normally associated with the
high school, so right adjacent to the park are softball
fields, baseball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts up
here, and various other different fields included down in
this corner here as is presently situated a stadium. So the
park has not only the passive areas but also the use of the
more active high school playing fields. The land does have
some drainage that comes across it up on the higher levels.
In those drainage ways are some wetlands. There are about
five of them. One comes across here, one here, one here and
another one is right in this area, a small one, and then
there is a very major one right up here in the area that we
have planned to use as the park. This area right here
drains the ...... about 50 or 60% of the total uplands area
which goes through the park area where the wetlands that now
exist would not be disturbed, the drainage would not be
disturbed in any way in the present. There would be some,
there are about a total of maybe seven acres total in the
preliminary study of wetlands on this proposed site of which
we think we might have to disturb one or two acres of that;
the remainder of the wetlands would be left in tact. The
site development costs for this site we think would be
relatively normal; the site development costs for the
elementary school and the high school as part of the Budget
for the construction of the schools, as they would be here
or any other site, are approximately $3 million over and
above the cost of the buildings; the off-site improvements
for bringing Robious Road improvements at this time in order
to serve the schools - this is a project that would be done
anyhow but probably might be three, four or five years in
the future otherwise - would be included in some of the
costs that we are talking about today but not in the $3
million that I just said; the costs for doing that, and for
some contingencies on the site, are little less than $2
million. At this time, I would like to ask Mr. Lee
Mallonee, who as the consultant the School Board has
retained to investigate the wetlands, to give a little bit
of a presentation about the wetlands that he has
· And I would like to say that this is a concept
only. In the course of developing a site, we sort of zero
in on the final design as we work on it; we have put as much
time on this site as we have any other site that we have
worked with for Chesterfield County public schools. And we
have investigated the wetlands, we have investigated the
topography in the preliminary sense ....... we have the County
topographical maps - that's a very small scale; and we have
investigated the soils by having the County agricultural
soils map reviewed by our office and also we have had a
geotechnical engineer look at those and that person is also
familiar with the site - he had indicated he sees no problem
with building the schools on this site. So we have sort of
covered the bases as generally as we can at this point in
time. As the property is purchased we would go into more
detail and get more specific information and of course we
would be in a better position to get more specific costs.
So Lee would you give us something about the wetlands?
Mr. Mallonee: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, my name is Lee
Mallonee, I am with Bio Habitat which is a ecological
consultant firm in , Maryland and Richmond. I was
contacted by the School Board in mid-October, 1989; they
requested me to review this property on the James River for
them to give them a preliminary evaluation as to the
presence of non-tidal wetlands on the site. What I took
with me on the site was the August, 1989 site plan and
reviewed the site based on that layout and with that
property line boundary. That land was since then sanded.
In a preliminary evaluation, what we do is to walk the
entire property and we focus our attention basically on the
drainage swales which run through the property. In this
particular instance, they run from the top right of the
sheet to the bottom left of the sheet, somewhat perpendi-
cular to that bottom right line there. There are four major
drainage forces through the property. When I walked the
property in October, it was in the October of following the
wettest summer we have had in a long time and all of those
drainage swales looked like very nice creeks. I have been
out on the property for the past four or five days and those
drainage swales look like dry ditches right now. They would
still qualify as non-tidal wetlands under the Federal method
for delineating non-tidal wetlands but the property is
basically dry right now. The evaluation that we did in
October was a general mapping where I basically took a print
of the County topo and marked the width of the wetland areas
on the map. Mr. Sowers who was nice enough to make
available to me survey information that his engineers had on
the site so that it would facilitate my work and my accuracy
in that preliminary evaluation. I have completed the
delineation on four of the sites working from Robious Road
toward the river. The one site I have left to delineate
would be that site which would be in the passive park area.
And until we have the actual field location done by the
surveyor we will not know exactly the extent of the actual
field delineated wetland versus the generalized location
which we did in October but my rough sense is that the
acreage is basically the same as it was when we roughly
approximated in October. And again we will be finishing up
that fourth swale which is in the park property by the end
of the week. If you have any questions, I would happy to
answer them.
~r. Currin: I would like to ask one question. In the park
area, the wetlands and also the flood area, how much of that
park would ..... what type of park do you think we will end up
with? Is it going to be used, usable for playing fields or
is it going to be strictly a marina type of park or is
it .......
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Mr. Mallonee: My understanding from the preliminary planning is
that it is a passive recreation park with a nature center
and perhaps trails and a boat launch area and a fishing
dock. And that the more active recreation would be co-used
with the school facility.
Mr. Currin: Yes.
Mr. Cuicci: Lucks Lane is right here.- this dotted line, you
may be able to see it ..... the dotted line that runs right
through here like this. This is the floodplain, the 100
year floodplain.
Mr. Currin: Okay, that would be used to the passive - for
trails, etc. Okay, I understand. Mr. Sullivan.
Mr. Sullivan: Mr. Mallonee, there is a ....... one of the things
Mr. Fulghum has provided us with today - it said no problem
is anticipated in receiving Corps of Engineers' approval for
this project and it is possible that a permit may not even
be required. Could you elaborate on that for me?
Mr. Mallonee: Yes sir. Because the wetlands on this property
are considered headwaters wetlands which means they do not
have a very large drain station...a drainage swale area
filling into them .... you are allowed to fill up to one acre
with no pe.rmit under the Corps guidelines. For fills
between one and ten acres you have notify the Corps of your
intent to fill and a permit may be required. What we are
going to do after we have the field delineations mapped by
the surveyor on the accurate topo of the property is to work
with the architect to see if we can minimize our impacts for
less than an acre. I have had conversations with Mr. Nick
who is the field representative for the Corps that
I have worked with in Chesterfield County before and he
indicated to me that he felt the project would be approved,
that if fills exceeded maybe four or five acres we would
probably require a permit but that a permit in all likeli-
hood seemed to be reasonable to expect. Again, that is
without him ever seeing the site .... it was just my
description of the site to him and his views.
Mr. Sullivan: In the normal course of development of this
property or any other property when would say this would be
done, that this work would be completed? We are going to
end and we got a target date on this of September, 1993. I
see that the geotechnical evaluation is going to begin on
July 17th. I guess from a permitting standpoint what are we
talking about timewise?
Mr. Mallonee: If we had to submit for a full permit and do an
alternative analysis it might be six months. Now, if you
have to go that route, that still would not preclude
development of the uplands portion of the property. The
next thing that we will do when we have the wetlands map
back is to arrange for a meeting and a site visit with the
Corps of Engineers and they would view the property and sign
off on the delineation.
Mr. Sullivan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Currin: Any other Board members have any questions?
response) Thank you sir.
(No
Mr. Fulghum: At this time I would like to call on Mr. Bob
Masden, Deputy Administrator, to address the .... also the
parks situation.
Mr. Masden: Many of the aspects of the park has already been
talked about so I will not dwell on that but maybe in 1988
remind you that the referendum approved $1 million for the
purchase of a park in this area and under the State's
Outdoor Plan for some years now, they have updated that,
they have emphasized the need for a park in this particular
area and if possible to acquire property on the river so
that the public could have access to a precious asset, that
if we did not move expeditiously maybe cutoff forever.
Also, all of our plans, ever since certainly I came here, we
have been aware of the need for a park up in that area and
on the river if possible. We soon realized, however, that
$1 million would not go far in purchasing land on the river
because of the cost of land and so on so we have kept in
touch with the Schools and they with us for many of the same
sites looking for park property. The advantage here to us
is that we can have a passive park and at the same time have
the athletic facilities right near by so that we don not
have to duplicate those efforts if we were to purchase in a
separate area we would then have the pressure for separate
athletic facilities. So we can have a passive park and
again we do look at nature trails, picnic shelters, nature
center and whatever aquatic activities that the Board would
approve later. Our plan of course for the park to come
before the Board for your approval and I am sure you have
talked to the public extensively about what you have wanted
there. But we do see it as primarily a passive park
integrated with the school site so that we can use their
athletic facilities. We do not have a problem ordinarily in
a park with wetlands ..... we can work with it; we can it for
educational purposes; we can have trails around it; and
usually we can use it as an asset. I do not think that will
be a problem to us. We are delighted to have the 650 feet;
we would like to have more than that if we could but we
realize that the difficulty in acquiring waterfront
property.
Mr. Sullivan: May I follow up on that and want to be clear that
what I heard the other day and for the benefit of all the
other supervisors, Mr. Ramsey, as I think I heard you the
other day when we were discussing the park aspect of it, I
believe that what you said was that your information would
be that we could not have that park if we did not tie it in
with the schools. Would you elaborate on that? I am not
sure I expressed it correctly.
Mr. Ramse¥: Yes sir. In the negotiations with the property
owner, we never really came to a firm number but it was
apparent that he considered that the most valuable part of
his property and that with the money we had to work with we
could not buy just park land and develop this park without
combining the facilities with the school.
Mr. Sullivan: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, might I ask a .... Mr .....
Pete, can I ask you a question please if you will? No,
wrong Pete. Mr. Stith, very briefly, one of the things that
is involved in this, in this project are a number of
athletic fields. Could you deal with that information for
the benefit of the Board having to do with the need for
athletic fields in that particular area.
Mr. Stith: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the Board,
Mr. Ramsey, currently with over 1,600 acres of parks we have
a number of athletic facilities and major sports complexes
in most of our major parks - at Rockwood Park (165 acres)
about 40% of that is active recreation with about 7
baseball/softball fields. We currently, in cooperation with
the schools, have athletic facilities there - major athletic
facilities such as at Bird and at Robious. One of the
things that this site will do for us is to continue to
provide the athletic facilities that are in demand. This
year for instance we picked up in the Huguenot Little League
system over 22 new baseball teams. In the CBC system, which
is one of our largest athletic baseball groups, we picked up
an additional 25 teams. And I remind you that with close to
50 new teams we did not pick up one new ball field so we had
to do a lot of juggling around on the fields and if this
site comes to reality it will go a long ways in helping
relieve some of the pressure that the athletic groups are
putting on us for more baseball and softball fields as well
as soccer. Soccer is our fastest growing sport and we have,
in fact, had to move inside to the high school gym for
soccer so this will go a long ways in helping us.
Mr. S~llivan: Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
Mr. Applegate: Before he sits down, Mr. Chairman, let me ask Mr.
Stith a question. How many baseball fields for little
leagues are being provided at this proposed new northern
area high school?
Mr. Stith: I guess all total there are about three or four
new fields being proposed at the site.
Mr. Applegate: Little league fields?
Mr. Stith: When you say little league, you mean ...........
Mr. Applegate: Similar to Rockwood, look like Rockwood,
Ironbridge .....
Mr. Stith: Again, we have a combination of probably about
three or four fields at the new site with the potential
development of two additional ones.
Mr. Applegate: Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Mr. Fulghum.
Mr. Fulghum: Mr. Chairman, that concludes the formal presenta-
tion that we had planned to make. We would be glad to
answer any questions the Board might have.
Mr. Currin: Anybody else got any more questions?
Mr. Sullivan: I guess, one more that I might. Would .... Tom, one
other question that keeps coming up is this site as compared
to alternative sites. Could .... we have been provided with a
map showing the attendance zones and I was wondering .... I
see that Carl is here or was here .... if you .... could you
address that for me .... would it be okay to have him address
that situation for us?
Mr. Fulghum: Yes, that would be fine. Dr. Chafin.
Dr. Chafin: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, Mr. Ramsey, I
did not know I was going to speak...do not have my coat with
me so I apologize. If you would like me to, I can briefly
describe where we are with the rezoning and where we think
we might end up. Obviously, we have not addressed that
issue because until this particular issue is resolved we
cannot begin to make boundary changes on high schools until
we know we have a high school. As far as this particular
site serving the need, as Mr. Fulghum mentioned earlier,
there are currently better than 2,000 high school students
in the larger geographic area north of Route 60; those
students are currently at either Monacan High School or
Midlothian High School. This situation ..... the location of
the Riverton property is within the geographic attendance
zone of the current Robious Middle School attendance zone
and currently the Robious Middle School kids split and a
portion of those kids go to Monacan and a portion of those
kids go to Midlothian. So in terms of the location of the
site, it is located within the geographic area that we need
to serve. And in terms of kids to be served, at least the
10
population to be served, there are better than 2,000 high
school kids in that area. Now, with that elaboration or
explanation, if I have hit directly on your question, let me
stop and let you ......
Mr. Sullivan: I have one other question I would like to ask.
Is .... one of the things that has happened is when the
additions were originally planned, the planning was that we
would have those in 1992. Now we are not going to have this
school,, if it is approved, until 1993. Tell us about what
is going to happen in that one year if you will.
Dr. Chafin: Monacan and Midlothian are both currently, as of
this past school year, over capacity in terms of their
student enrollments. And the obvious answer to the question
is, they are going to have to survive if you will yet
another year with overcrowding. Given the growth in that
area, what we anticipate, at this point, is that both of
those schools will have in the neighborhood of
2,200 .... 2,250 or so students depending on how they
grow ..... but in the neighborhood of 2,200 and they both
designed, program capacity designed to handle 1,750. So it
will be yet another year of trailers and of increased
student body in those two schools.
Mr. Sullivan: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Currin: Dr. Chafin, could I .... I was approached by a
constituent in the Midlothian area and I am just asking
this .... I was told this .... and I just want to have some
verification from you. The site, I think it is called
Greenspring, .... and the land has been donated to the School
System for a future high school site. From a geographic
standpoint or however the School goes about deciding best
possible locations for facilities to accommodate the most
students for the least amount of distance, I guess, how does
that fit in now, if in fact you had to accommodate the
approximately 2,000 students that you are talking about, as
compared to the site we are looking at now, Riverton, how
does that compare and could those schools that are
overcrowded, like Midlothian and Monacan, would it be as
easy for those people to go there or is that creating a real
district problem within the School System and I do not want
to get involved in that. But I am just asking for
information.
Dr. Chafin: Mr. Currin, the site to which you refer, the
Greenspring site, is out Otterdale Road which is west of
Midlothian. Geographically, that area is still very rural.
Our recent, we went back and double checked as this issue
re-emerged, and there are currently fewer than a 125 high
school kids living in that larger geographic area .... none of
whom are the 2,000 we are talking about.
11
Mr. Currin: Okay, so in other words that 120 are within what
you would call a geographical area that should attend and
you need practically 1,700 and some odd students or 1,800
and some odd students to fill it back up.
Dr. Chafin: Correct. We anticipate in the next five years or
so, and the reason that is a viable future site for us, is
that by the mid 90's, mid to late 90's, and please do not
tie me into that specific date, but in the not too distance
future that will become a viable high school site for us.
We are quite certain of that.
Mr. Currin: Okay.
Dr. Chafin:
Thank you.
Mr. Sullivan: Thank you, Dr. Chafin.
Mr. Currin:
This is a public hearing .....
Mr. Applegate: Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Currin:
I am sorry ....
Mr. Applegate: ...... is Mr. Fulghum going to have Mr. Perdue
speak to his appraisal?
Mr. Fulghum: Mr. Applegate, we did put in a call for Mr. Perdue
yesterday and ....
Mr. Applegate: .... and still have not been able to locate him?
Mr. Fulghum: .... just have not been able to determine .... he is
still out of town and has...we have not been able to talk
with him. We did request through his office that he call
us.
Mr. Currin: Okay, this is a public hearing and so now we will
open it up to the public. Anyone here that would like to
speak to the matter if they would come in an orderly fashion
- the people that want to speak for the location, let's
start with them. And then we will go to the people that
evidently are against the location. Now, we will start
for...
Dr. Hansel: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, Mr. Ramsey,
good morning. I am Jeff Hansel from Edgehill Subdivision in
Bon Air and I would like to review this issue for you. The
issue of whether or not to build a new high school in
northern Chesterfield was reopened in late February and
early March by a group of concerned PTA parents. It is
still a grass-roots citizen organization without a Budget,
without officers. To this point, each of you has received
approximately a 1,000 letters from individuals, PTA's and
12
community associations, to this point. Today, I brought
another batch of letters and each of you has an envelope in
front of you. Mr. Sullivan's is different from the other
four because we have not quadruplicated all of those in Mr.
Sullivan's files so he has additional letters that he can
show to you. I would estimate that there is close to a
1,000 additional letters with signatures within those
envelopes that each of you has just received. I personally
had conversations with I would estimate a 100 citizens
including teachers, school administrators, and people who
just stopped me in the supermarket, in the drug store and at
work to thank me for trying to work for this high school's
establishment. It is no doubt that there is tremendous
popular support for this school not only in the Midlothian
District but also Clover Hill and in Dale. So we urge you
to approve the funding, the supplemental funding, the
$2,000,000 today; why now, why today; because the existing
high schools as you just heard are severely overcrowded and
will become more overcrowded within the next several years.
The process of awarding bids and beginning to prepare for
construction must begin quite soon so that these schools
will be open, this school will be open by 1993. I remind
you that the school building program has already been
delayed a year; the original plan was to build a school by
1992. But in response to the public's questions the
Administration of the Schools and the School Board has
agreed to delay another year. If this funding is delayed
much beyond today the question of this property may really
become a dead issue - you will lose the property for two
schools and a wonderful park and you will lose the
confidence of the citizens of this County who voted their
taxes for these projects and convinced the School Board to
take another look at and reverse a decision they had already
made to build additions to four high schools. So I must
repeat it is now or never for this high school. Why is
there opposition to what is clearly a very popular decision
to develop Riverton. I do not really believe it is based on
the topographical questions or the environmental questions
or the financial questions because as we just heard these
questions are easily solved. I think that the opposition is
at least partially based on questions of a few people who
live in the Salisbury area as to what will happen to the
traffic patterns if the school causes increased traffic in
their neighborhood. This can be documented by the Salisbury
Courier, an article in January, 1990, which I will be happy
to show to you, which is the official publication of the
Salisbury Homeowners Association with an article discussing
the Riverton rezoning and the traffic patterns that may
occur if this area is developed. And I have the paper, I
will be happy to show it to you. In terms of this land and
this development and the high school, these fears, I think,
actually are unreasonable because, at this point, both the
high schools that serve this area, Monacan and Midlothian,
are on one side of Salisbury which I believe is the south
13
side. The new school will be on the opposite side of
Salisbury which is the north side so the traffic that now
has to cut through subdivisions to get to Monacan and
Midlothian will now expectedly move to this new high school
which means there will be two corridors of traffic - one
moving down Midlothian Turnpike going to Monacan and
Midlothian, the other moving down Robious Road going to the
new high school so there will not be the crossing over that
now has to occur. I will stop with my position now but
mention that several other speakers will follow me and each
one will focus on certain specific aspects of our citizens'
concern about this Riverton property. We hope you will
approve the additional funding and appreciate your willing-
ness to listen to us. Thank you very much.
Mr. Currin:
Sir, how many total petitions did you say? .......
Dr. Hansel: Total names ..... previously I think we had
approximately a 1,000 letters which are in file - we do not
have them; you have them and I am estimating 1,000 letters.
I think within these packets today there are approximately a
1,000 additional signatures. I cannot tell you exactly how
many specific petitions. There are also some letters from
homeowners associations which represent all the homeowners
in that area in those packets.
Mr. Currin: Okay.
Mr. Sullivan: Mr. Chairman, if you need to know how many letters
there are you are welcome to count these .... but those are
the letters and my replies and as Dr. Hansel said do not
include the petitions that were gathered today. I would
like to make one comment. We appreciate everybody coming
down to speak to this Board and taking the time .... I would
like to comment on the fact that Dr. Hansel and his wife
drove back from North Carolina from their vacation to be
with us today. I appreciate that.
Mr. Mayes:
Mr. Chairman, may I ask ........
Mr. Currin: Yes sir.
Mr. Mayes:
Sir, may I ask you one question.
Dr. Hansel: Yes sir.
Mr. Mayes: You indicated that one of the questions was
finance and that could be easily solved. I did not quite
understand that.
Df. Hansel: I think that as just has been reviewed the
original figures which were presented by the School
Administration and have been re-reviewed and reviewed
by .... in detail still stand. They were...I do not have them
14
in front of me .... they were laid out by the School
Administration and they do present the funding as it still
can be achieved.
Mr. Currin: You are talking about site information?
Dr. Hansel: Yes.
Mr. Currin: The cost?
Mr. Applegate: Colonel Mayes, this is what he is ......
Mr. Mayes:
Thank you very much. I have no problem with that.
Mr. Currin: Okay, thank you sir.
Mr. Wetzel: Mr. Chairman, members of the Board, my name is
James Wetzel. I live in Roxshire contrary to the opinion
that was apparently given last week on tv; I do not live in
Salisbury and I do not live in Powderham. I want to make
that abundantly clear since I was apparently at least given
a on tv. Why am I here? I am here for a
couple of reasons, one is I have children in the School
System; I have one currently at Midlothian High School; I
have one currently at Robious Elementary who through the
normal course of events will either be going to a very, very
crowded Midlothian High School or much to our great hope a
new high school in northern Chesterfield County. The second
reason I am here is I happen to be a professional economist
- my area of research, my area of publication happens to be
the economics of education, the impact of things such as
schools, parks, etc., on property values and through that on
tax dollars. It is a neat opportunity; this is my backyard;
this is my tax (???); in that sense it is sort of fun
to look at. As a taxpayer who wants to get the most from
the tax dollars, certainly a subject we talk about
incessantly in schools of business, as Mr. Daniel said it
phrased it earlier I think, "looking down the dugout for
what is coming in the future" I think if we look down the
road ten or fifteen years there is obviously going to be a
need for several high schools. The question of Greenspring
has been addressed by several other people; now that
question seems to come up for reasons I am not quite fully
aware of; it seems to me that Greenspring is geographically
in the wrong place for this and it is designed to serve
future needs on the Clover Hill area, Upper Swift Creek
Reservoir area. For this high school I think there is an
abundant need for a new high school located somewhere
between the City, James River and the current high schools
at Midlothian and Monacan designed to serve that area. As
stated earlier, we have approximately 1,500 students simply
in the Robious Middle School area who need a place to go to
high school. In addition to that, there is further
development taking place currently; there are additional new
15
homes being built in Roxshire, which is where I happen to
live; there are new homes being built in Reed's Hill; there
are new homes being built in Reed's Bluff; one has a sneaky
suspicion that given the size of those houses most of them
are going to be occupied by people who have children and
most of them probably are moving where they are because, in
part, of the schools. In addition to that we will have
further development north of Robious Road on in the future.
Given those factors, I think it is an interesting question
to look at, where do we put the high school, what will a new
high school cost, and I think that one of the rare instances
of what seems to be tremendous cooperation between the
schools and other parts of the County Administration, can we
combine the high school with other facilities such as parks,
ballfields, etc., to essentially get more money or more
value for the taxpayer dollar. I realize there has been the
issue about the land cost and people have questioned what
the County is paying in terms of the land. As an economist,
I will always go back to when you argue about prices, you
are back to supply and demand. It does not take a brilliant
genius to figure out, looking at the map of that part of the
County, that there is not a tremendous amount of free land
available. The same reason that drives housing prices up in
that area, mainly people moving into the area, is the same
reason that necessitates a need for a new high school in
that area and it is the same reason that makes that parcel
of land sitting out there appreciate. It would have been
cheaper if we had bought it five years ago; it would have
been cheaper if we had bought it ten years ago; if we had to
buy it in the year 2000, I would hate to think what it would
cost per acre. I suspect in the year 2000 the people who
are sitting up there in your seats and the people at the
School Board will look back at prices of $26,000 an acre and
say, ~"boy, I wish we could buy stuff at those prices they
bought it for ten year ago back in 1990"; it is the price we
pay today. It is a multifunction site; it is a multipurpose
site; we gain a lot of benefits; we gain a very desirable
road fronting our park. With regard to some of the issues
such as the cost of the roads, straightening the road,
fixing Robious Road, etc., one could certainly make an
argument from somebody who lives in that area that that is
probably a good idea whether we happen to build a high
school there or not. When we do it and who bears the cost
is of course another question. With regard to the site
feasibility issue that has been raised, I think, we hired an
architect to do that and he has done his job. I hope we
will trust him to do what he has done correctly, just as we
hired architects to do other parts of the capital improve-
ment issues that we approved in 1985 and 1988 bond issues.
Some questions have been raised about the tax base up there
and what using Riverton would do to the tax base. As
somebody who used to teach a class in urban economics, the
first law of housing economics was everybody lives some
place; if people want to buy $300,000 houses in Chesterfield
16
County because Chesterfield County has, or at least used to
have, good schools they are going to find $300,000 houses to
buy because a lot of people who buy those houses are buying
them in part for tax reasons. Who will benefit if will
build a high school and an elementary school and have a park
site up there? First and foremost our children - it will
lead to an improvement or at leastwise not a decrease in the
quality of education. I got into this several months ago
when the additions, or pods or whatever we call them, were
first suggested. And in my personal belief and a belief
from reading a fair amount of literature in the area of
economic education and in that education that going to
bigger high schools was just a really, really bad idea. At
that point in time I sat down with my friendly little piece
of technology called a PC, ran off some petitions which I
sent to you all several months back; at that point, not
knowing about all these other good people who were in
existence, I basically found them one day because I happened
to be at my pediatrician's office getting allergy shots for
my kids and Dr. Hansel came out and said, "Eureka, we need
you" and I said, "Why" and he said, "Because you are an
economist, you know about dollars and cents"; I said, "Why
do you need me?"; it turned out he had been working with a
number of people on this very issue. The second group that
will gain after the students, I think, are the people who
live in the Salisbury area and the far west Robious Road
area; they will gain a school; they will gain a high school
and elementary school; they will gain an incredibly
desirable park; this is bound to increase their property
values; it will increase property values in that entire
Robious Road corridor; that increase in property values will
lead to further future tax revenues; one could sit down and
hypothesize various numbers to see when it pay for itself,
etc.; my suspicion is that fiscally this is a sound idea.
What happens if we do not build it? The great fear is that
we are going to go back to the pods, have bigger high
schools, high schools that are more crowded will lead to a
decrease in academic quality and a decrease in the overall
quality of the entire education experience. In summary, I
think there are good choices and bad choices that we
frequently face. Our choice here is to spend, at this
point, an extra $2.2 million; I think it is an incredibly
worthwhile, I think it is a very sound fiscal expenditure on
the part of the County, I heartily support it, I think if we
do not do it we will regret five or ten years down the road
that we did not do it and we will be kicking ourselves five
or ten years down the road and saying we made a drastic
mistake by not buying this piece of property and developing
it for parks, athletic fields, an elementary school and a
high school.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, sir. Anyone else like to speak for?
17
Mr. Hastings: Yes sir, my name is Bill Hastings. I am from the
Matoaca District. I believe the purchase of the property,
the Riverton property, by the County is a wise decision. We
know that there are concerns with the cost of the school
sites and, as Mr. Applegate has pointed out on so many
occasions, the development costs and so forth a~d the
Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act concerns - I know there are
many concerns - but the School System does need additional
sites for buildings. The thing that concerns me a lot, as
Mr. Ramsey's comments that were made earlier about the
connection with the school site and the park site, it
appears from what everything that has been said that if we
do not have the entire piece of property then we would...as
a school site and park and multi-use as has been
described ..... then we would lose the park, park land. That
concerns me. I think that the citizens of this County
really, really need riverfront property like that as a park
area; I think it would be a tremendous benefit for all
citizens and I know you have other items appearing on the
agenda full of parks later which certainly very much need it
as well. Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, sir. Anyone else?
Ms. Donovan: My name is Meg Donovan and I am from the
Midlothian District Crestwood Farms Residents' Association.
My assignment, to avoid repetition, is to cover two areas -
wetlands and credibility. First thing, we will take the
hardest one - wetlands. Recent publicity has focused on
this issue even to this morning's paper. Specifically, the
problem area is the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. At
this time, no one can predict how the County will write its
implementation plan and exemption process procedures which
will be somewhat like a Zoning Appeals Board. Therefore,
the Act has unknown factors to be clarified in the future.
If normal County business procedures are followed, the site
plans for Riverton site will be approved before September
20, 1990 - the day the Act becomes effective. This schedule
factors in a deferment and cannot be seen in anyway as an
attempt to sneak in under the wire to avoid compliance. The
Army Corps of Engineers is providing wetlands management and
all permits from the State and Federal agencies will be
obtain as required by law as necessary. Intense activity
began to find a school site when the public learned about
the pod concept voted on February 27th by the School Board.
The rush to find a site had not been to dodge this Act but
has been driven by the simple fact of overcrowded schools.
General knowledge of the Chesapeake Bay Act has only
recently emerged. Mr. Ramsey frankly stated that if, for
any reason, the September 20 site plan deadline could not be
met for the Riverton site the Riverton site would be un-
usable because of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act
requirements; therefore, a safeguard clause will be in the
contract - "If the site is unusable the deal simply will not
18
go through". We the taxpayers will not be stuck with a
white elephant. The County is the developer in this
situation. When a law becomes effective we abide by that
law, not before. Ordinary developers have one goal in
common - to make the most money possible. Our goal is
provide safe, uncrowded schools for the children of
Chesterfield County. Why should we play by one set of rules
and developer by another? I think we should learn from
commercial developers and get the best deal possible for our
children by using the same rules that any smart developer
would use. They must use the legal system, the County
zoning codes and any County, State or Federal regulations
that apply. We must...should use those too. I am sure
developers are well aware of this deadline and working
efficiently to meet it for their particular projects. The
Chesapeake Bay Act is excellent. I support its implementa-
tion as scheduled but not before. The site plan should
comply with the Act as much as possible to achieve minimum
impact and keeping in mind the spirit and intent of the Act.
The goal of the Act is to develop wetlands with an eye on
water quality rather than not looking at all. I trust that
this factor will carefully be worked into the site plan as
much as possible and this has already been indicated by the
architects we have used previously.
Credibility - this is a problem and it is not only
credibility but it has grown at this point to pure
confusion. Attending a swim meet last night, people were
really confused about what is going on. The Midlothian
District voted for funding for schools and other County
needs. We thought we voted for funding for schools and that
is what the advertising said. However, the legal wording
was very flexible. When the pod concept was presented,
credibility was severely wounded. Concerned citizens do not
give up. We go to work and we trust the system and use it.
Because of that work we are here this morning to decide the
funding for the additional $2,000,000 for the two schools
and a park at the Riverton site. The process of working
together has been a healing process. As the County
continues to grow there will be needs to be met in the
future. We will be asked to vote on another Bond
Referendum. How will we vote? It depends on healing
credibility. If this project is technically feasible and
falls within Budget, if the facts supplied to you by the
experts answer your questions to your personal satisfaction
then vote for funding for the Riverton site. Just as we
trusted the democratic system and worked from February
through June to reach this meeting this morning, we all must
trust staff and expect .... staff and experts and their
numbers they present to you. We ask for a careful decision
considering all of the consequences especially the health,
safety and quality of education for our children - the
future of Chesterfield County. Thank you.
19
currin:
Thank you, ma'm.
Ms. Czyszczon: Hi, my name is Joan Czyszczon. I live in
Powderham which is just east of the Riverton site. And I am
so glad the media figured that out for me because I am
terrible with directions. I fully support the concept of
Riverton. I moved here about five years ago and thought the
trailers at my children's schools were just temporary but
they seem to be following us wherever we go - from
elementary school to middle school and possibly high school.
I am concerned because I question how these kids do in such
crowded conditions. Is there a sense of belonging, do some
of them fall through the cracks, how many spots are open on
band, chorus, clubs and sports teams - not many. I am also
concerned about the support .... the impact of this growth on
our recreational programs, namely baseball. And I was
really excited to see Mr. Stith here today. I am the
secretary of the Huguenot Little League. This year we
registered 1,500 children in our T-ball, baseball and
softball programs. We had 115 teams and only 11 fields on
which to play and those fields were spread out - we had
sometimes to use Southampton, we used Bon Air, Greenfield,
the Robious Complex and we only had one softball field at
the Robious Complex to use. Some of our teams were not able
to play games due to the bad weather forcing us to scrounge
around, as Mr. Stith alluded to earlier, to find fields for
them to finish their season. Scheduling these 115 teams was
a nightmare as you might imagine - farmers may have been
praying for rain but we prayed that it did not rain.
Gentlemen, we are facing a serious problem in the northern
Chesterfield area. We need more schools and recreational
facilities to serve the growing needs of our community. We
need the Riverton complex badly. The welfare of our
children cannot only be measured in dollars and cents. The
Board of Supervisors and the School Board need to continue
to work together to provide the good quality of life for our
most precious possessions - our children. And there is one
other thing that I want say to clarify some things that we
have been reading about in the newspaper. There is no
conflict, there if no fight, between the Powderham residents
and the Salisbury residents - I want to make that perfectly
clear. Many of us, in both of these subdivisions, have the
best interest of our children at heart and we have worked
together in this grass-roots movement to see that those
interests are protected. Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, ma'm.
Miss Homer: Good morning ladies and gentlemen, members of the
Board of Supervisors. My name is Jennifer Homer and I am a
student at Monacan High School and concerned member of this
community for a proposal for a northern area high school.
When I was asked to speak about my views concerning this
issue, I tried to take each alternative into account. After
20
spending time reviewing the possibilities, I realized which
would be the most beneficial alternative to the student
body. Instead of additions to the existing schools, another
northern area high school could serve the students in a more
appropriate manner. The problem I see resulting from
additions to existing schools is a situation concerning
overcrowding. My family and I have resided in Chesterfield
County for 13 years and we have seen the changes and
constant construction going on in this community. Each year
a handful of new neighborhoods are created and they
contribute to continuous enrollment in our schools. I
cannot imagine my class sizes getting much larger than they
already are. As it is, in a standard English, Math or
Health and Physical Education class, the norm is 25 to 30
students, sometimes more. That is the correct class size
with no new area high school. This number could increase
greatly in as little as 5 years. I am currently attending
Monacan High School and I realize the situation is similar
at Midlothian. A new northern area high school would
relieve the overcrowding situation and prevent possible
resulting problems which might occur with additions to the
existing schools. If the teacher/student ratio is
increased, many students might not get the attention they
deserve in a regular class size. The problem of overcrowd-
ing in these two area high schools would not be solved as
many had originally hoped it would be. In fact the
situation could get worse as far as numbers of students,
limitations in sports, teams and clubs, increased
competition within the student body to excel, and over-
crowding in the halls and parking lots, which already face
problems with sufficient space. I have enjoyed my high
school experience so far and I have gotten a high quality
education in Chesterfield County schools. Next year, I will
be the co-president of the Forensic Team at Monacan and I
would like to see a program such as this begin at a new
s~hool. The sports programs also have an excellent
reputation and a new set of teams could only enrich the
existing ones within the County. If only additions were
made to our school, imagine the number of students per team
or club, the individuals who would not have a chance to
participate in activities, because the teams and the schools
cannot afford to support these extra students. I think the
only feasible alternative to this situation is to build a
high school, an elementary school and a park on the Riverton
site. Thank you for this opportunity to express the views
of the student body.
Mr. Currin: Thank you .... the students at.
students at Midlothian?
Did you say the
Mr. Sullivan: Monacan.
Miss Homer: Monacan.
21
Mr. Currin: You represent your student body very well.
Miss Homer: Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Next.
Ms. Hutkins: Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Board
of Supervisors. My name is Pauline Hutkins. I am a
resident of Salisbury in Midlothian. I come before you
today to urge each of you to respond favorably to the stated
needs of your constituents, the students and families in
northern Chesterfield County by voting to allocate the
additional $2.2 million in funds to support the construction
of a new elementary school, a new high school and to support
the development of parks and recreation facilities on the
site chosen. Prior to today's meeting, you have certainly
had numerous opportunities through the media, through
information gathering meetings to learn you should not
allocate the $2.2 meetings. You have also been cited
enumerable reasons as to just why you should not allocate
these funds. In fact there have been so many different
reasons cited by the opponents of this issue it is difficult
for me to keep them all straight. The focus of concern of
those opposed to this project has appeared to change almost
daily as arguments have shifted from topography to road
improvements, to site development, to drainage costs, to
utilities, to who pays for what, to highest and best use, to
the idea of someone paying residual damages, to straighten-
ing Robious Road, to redistricting issues, to loss of
residential tax revenue, to well we don't want the schools
to go there but a riverfront park would be very nice, to
finally the newest and biggest issue - is the County really
trying along not yet in effect or is it is simply following
through the normal process or course of action prescribed
for any development and site plan approval just as any other
developer would do given the same time and situation.
Rather than dwelling on rebuttaling the reasons you should
not approve this allocation on the table, I want to focus on
the reasons why you should freely and logically vote to
allocate the $2.2 million to support the development of the
schools and park complex. First, you have had the
opportunity, more than once I believe, but certainly today,
to learn the facts and figures surrounding every facet of
this issue. You are aware of the exhaustive search and
consideration for sites and alternative sites. These facts
and figures apparently have been checked and rechecked. You
have been presented the information, the statistics, the
whys and wherefores regarding the site choice, from the
personnel charged with the responsibility of providing
accurate information. These persons are professionals,
persons who are credentialed to do what they do. They have
the expertise to evaluate and to recommend, to suggest best
possible alternatives. These persons are our employees,
they are paid to know what they are talking about.
22
Shouldn't we be able to trust them to fulfill their duties
as charged and shouldn't we trust and support their recom-
mendations and their answer that it is actually feasible to
put two schools and a park facility on this proposed site?
How much more black and white must the numbers and facts be
in order to convince some who doubt of the viability of this
project? Second, in 1985 and in 1988 your constituents,
citizens in the northern part of this County, overwhelmingly
supported the Bond Issue projects and capital improvement
needs as identified by the Chesterfield County School Board.
Citizens worked fervently in both campaigns to ensure
passage. Why? Because they wanted to alleviate existing
and future overcrowding and facilitate the construction of
Jacobs Road Elementary, of Evergreen Elementary, Crenshaw
Elementary, Ecoff Elementary, Woolridge Elementary, the
Bensley Elementary addition, the Ettrick Elementary Expan-
sion, the Alberta Smith Elementary slated to open in 1992
and a new elementary north of Route 60 and west of Huguenot
Road. In addition, by voting overwhelmingly in favor of the
'85 and '88 School Bond Issues, citizens supported construc-
tion of the new Bailey Bridge Middle School, the new Bailey
Bridge High School, the Midlothian Middle School Addition,
the conversion of Manchester High School to a middle school
and a new northern area high school originally slated to
open in 1992. Why again? To provide that critical relief
to meet future problems with overcrowding but more
importantly to respond favorably to the needs of the entire
County, not just one area or District. Citizens in our area
chose also to support upgrading of facilities at Meadowbrook
and Thomas Dale, Manchester and Matoaca High Schools, to
support energy conservation management and air conditioning
projects at 16 middle schools, at 16 elementary schools,
pardon me, 2 middle schools and the 4 high schools mentioned
before. Citizens chose also to support renovation and
conversion of space, open space classrooms at Greenfield,
Reams and Wells Elementary and in Matoaca Middle, Robious
Middle and Salem Middle .... the list goes on. You can see we
don't just ask for facilities and services and schools in
our area. We put our money where our mouths are. We
respond to needs, our children's needs and the needs of
children of other Districts in the County. Our track record
is solid. Our support has been unwaivering, however, the
new elementary school and the new northern area high school
are the only construction projects targeted in the school
bond issues which have been delayed and as yet have no sites
for construction. Third, we have here before us, I believe,
a terrific problem and it has been alluded to before. It is
one which has its roots in that familiar word "trust". And
it's one, if not resolved, could have long-term conse-
quences. This trust revolves around our faith in our school
officials, our belief and confidence in you - our super-
visors - our reliance on each other as friend, neighbors,
parents, educators, public officials - belief in our motives
and the motives of others which in this case and, in all
23
cases, should only have to do with providing the best
possible educational and recreational environment for our
children and our families. We in the northern area of the
County have trusted we were working in a collaborative
relationship to meet the future needs of our County, to
maintain and ensure the quality of life we want and deserve.
We have trusted our own children's future educational needs
would be met in 1991 and 92 by the construction of the
elementary and high schools we approved long before now. We
restated and reaffirmed that support and trust through our
hundreds and hundreds of letters and hundreds and hundreds
of phone calls made to School Board officials and County
Supervisors after the School Board announced its decision to
build additions instead of building a new high school to
relieve the overcrowding in the attendance districts of
Monacan and Midlothian. So, what has happened since we
responded to the call from and supported and placed our
trust in our public officials? Thus far, projected opening
dates for these two schools have already been delayed a
minimum of one year. Any further delay in this allocation
process would obviously extend the amount of time delay and
potentially the cost, hence, the overcrowding continues to
increase proportionately and more importantly, we place our
students in an environment, in environments which do not
maximum or enhance learning or personal growth. You have a
very important decision to make. As you deliberate, I urge
you to trust your people and their recommendation. I urge
you to honor the trust and the confidence we placed in you.
We need these schools. The numbers aren't going to change.
The children are not going to go away. We need your support
now and time is, obviously, of the essence. I urge you to
be visionary in your decision-making for in the words of a
writer, LeRoy Brownlow, "it is always wise to look ahead and
still wiser to look so far ahead that you see what others
don't see; this will enable you to push ahead of those with
short foresight". Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, ma'm.
Mr. Hobson: Chairman Currin and other members of the Board of
Supervisors, my name is Craig Hobson and I had about a 65
minute speech prepared but most of the facts have been gone
over by other people so I just want to call to your atten-
tion to what I consider in this process maybe two overriding
intangible issues which I think ;you need to consider today
along with the tangible evidence that hopefully the staff
has already provided to you. The first overriding that I
see that is sort of an intangible is the equality of educa-
tion in this County. I have three children in the public
schools - one in high school, one in middle school and one
in the elementary school. And I want my seven year old son
to have the same educational opportunities as my daughters
who are 13 and 15. Also, I would have to say I have heard
24
the argument about the cost of the site and I really believe
that brick for brick and book for book we in Midlothian only
want the same as they have in Enon, Chesterfield or in
Clover Hill. If the site cost forty thousand, four hundred
thousand or four million, to me, it is somewhat irrelevant
as long as the site is suitable for the intended use. Land
costs are going to be different in different areas of the
County and we in Midlothian should not be penalized for that
fact. The second overriding issue is accountability. We
elected you to make tough decisions as well as the easy
ones. You will never please everyone in this process. No
one wants a high school in their "backyard" built there;
however, the overwhelming majority of people who live on
Winterfield Road, RobiOus Road, the Salisbury area do want
this high school, this elementary school and this park. The
Midlothian/Salisbury area overwhelmingly passed the School
Bond Referendum and even the Meals Tax in 1988. Included in
the Bond Referendum were the 2 schools in question today.
Ninth grade additions were overwhelmingly rejected by the
residents of Midlothian. I believe Mr. Sullivan may have
brought some of the letters that he received with regard to
that to the meeting here today. We want these 2 schools.
If this site is suitable, let's put this issue to bed and
let's build schools to educate our children.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, sir.
Ms. Hussey: Good afternoon. Mr. Currin, Chairman, members of
the Board of Supervisors. I would like to read a letter
from Danny Smith who is the Chairman with the Chairman of
our Citizens' Committee supporting the '85, '88 School Bond
Referendum first and then I will speak for myself after.
"Dear Mr. Currin, Chairman and
Members of the School Board, Board of Supervisors:
I have requested this letter to be read at your public
hearing concerning the additional $2.2 million needed to
complete the purchase of the Riverton property. I apologize
I could not address you in person. As you know, I was
Chairman of the Citizens' Committee supporting both the 1985
and 1988 School Bond Referendum. I conveyed, along with the
committee members to the County citizens, the need to
provide more student spaces by building new schools. Should
the County deviate from building the additional schools and
to follow through with what the citizens were led to believe
then I feel you, along with the School Board, will lose
credibility as to how to best meet the needs, our space
needs and to maintain a quality education program for our
students. I also feel very strongly that you will jeopard-
ize the passage of future bond issues; therefore, I
encourage you to provide the funding to build a northern
area high school on the Riverton property. However, I do
25
not have, do have some reservations in regard to the pur-
chase of the Riverton property. My first concern is for the
Board to sure that the $2.2 million will cover all the
necessary additional costs to develop the property to
accommodate both the high school and the elementary school
and to channel the drainage property and to correct the
transportation concerns along Robious Road. Another concern
I have is in regard to our future capital need beyond the
1988 Bond Referendum. I do understand the financial
restraint that Chesterfield County raises in funding capital
facilities and also the need to begin a Capital Reserve to
fund our future capital needs. I am not sure I would
support any additional funding beyond the $2.2 million
needed now. I feel we must look ahead and not reduce our
capability to accommodate our long-term situation. I
encourage you to look at the Riverton property as a
realistic means to build a northern area high school and, at
the same time, utilize our tax dollars to the fullest and in
the most prudent manner.
Sincerely,
Daniel K. Smith
Lake Surrey Drive"
And I would like to submit these letters to the Chairman of
the Board for...to be..go on file for record of the minutes
after I make a statement on my own please. As I said, I am
Phyllis Hussey and I reside in the Salisbury Subdivision in
the Midlothian area and I was the area representative for
the Bond Referendum. And as we campaigned for the Bond
Referendum, people would ask are they really going to spend
the money the way they say they are, meaning are we going to
really get a new high school in this area. And I said but
yes, we certainly are but we must support this bond and the
~meals tax so this County the needs, the educational needs of
everyone in our entire population of the County. Therefore,
gentlemen, in order to maintain the integrity of the County,
we must fulfill the obligation and purchase the Riverton
site. I look at the Riverton purchase not just as a
Midlothian asset but as a major County investment. I
foresee this investment to be utilized by everyone in the
County, not just Midlothian people. In the future the
property, I see, can lend itself to other needs of the
County such as when declining enrollment comes to Chester-
field County, and it will come one day, housing for the
elderly would be possible in this area. I would like to
retire by the river - by then I probably will be a senior
citizen when declining enrollment comes. We must remember
that these are not the last two schools to be built in this
County. We will need more Bond Referendums and I will find
it very difficult to go to my community and ask for another
bond to .... if we end up with four high school additions
instead of a high school in Midlothian. Again, I urge you
26
to appropriate the $2.2 million needed for this County
investment for the future. I would like to submit these
letters to Chairman Currin for the record.
Mr. Daniel: Mr. Chairman, while she's coming forward, I need
to ask a question. We're talking about credibility here. I
have heard all morning long here about a public hearing for
$2.2 million and my Board paper says $2 million. What, What
is going on, Lane?
Ms. Hussey: I don't know .... I read Danny's letter ....
Mr. Daniel: No, I have heard others .... you weren't the only
one. Several people have mentioned $2.2 and I was wondering
if somebody knows something that I don't or .....
Mr. Ramsey: Two million is all I know of .....
Mr. Sullivan: I understand this is $2,000,000 .....
Mr. Daniel: Okay.
Mr. Sullivan: Inflation.
Mr. Ramsey:
..... market with index...
· Mr. Sullivan: That's right.
Mr. Daniel: It was alright.
Ms. Roberts: Chairman Currin, Mr. Sullivan, members of the
Board. My name is Gab Roberts and I live in the Roxshire
Subdivision in Midlothian. I am the immediate past
President of the Robious Middle School PTA, the immediate
past Midlothian Vice President of County Council and the
present Vice President of the Midlothian High School PTSA.
As a representative for the 1988 Bond, I was responsible for
working the Robious Road/Huguenot Road and Bon Air areas. I
think you should know how we sold the 1988 Bond Referendum
in Midlothian. Hundreds of citizens were contacted and
asked to support the Bond by calling and visiting their
neighbors and enlisting their support for the Bond. We
literally rang thousands of doorbells, made countless phone
calls and distributed tons of literature. We also donated
our own money and raised thousands of dollars from the
private and business sector. I personally appeared before
PTA forums, neighborhood groups and I even dragged my easel
and bond things with me to a neighborhood Labor Day picnic.
When I last appeared before you, I urged you to set the 1988
Bond at the highest amount you legally could so that the
taxpayers could show you that they were willing to support
our schools with their tax dollars. We successfully sold
the 1988 Bond and in Midlothian, as we have said, we also
supported the Meals Tax based on our District's desperate
27
need for a new northern area high school. The taxpayers of
Midlothian came out in droves to support the 1988 Bond to
enable the County to meet its needs in all areas of Chester-
field but especially to meet our special needs in
Midlothian. We acted in good faith and expect no less from
you. If the Bond commitment for this new high school is not
met, I am afraid the taxpayers in Midlothian and the other
areas of the County will be forced to think long and hard
before they will be able to support another Bond. I
personally would find it difficult, if not impossible, to go
back to these many dedicated people who worked so tirelessly
in 1988 and ask for their support on another Bond. We, as
Pauline said, have put our money where our mouths are and
kept our part of the bargain and we now respectfully ask you
to do the same. The clock is ticking and the time is
running out. Please make your decision to allocate the
additional funds needed to make this new northern area high
school a reality today. Thank you.
Mr. Sullivan:
please?
Mr. Chairman, may I .... Gab, may I ask a question
Ms. Roberts: Yes.
Mr. SulliYan: You were so active in this. There have been
several alternative sites that have been suggested, notably
Greenspring was one and I have heard Huguenot High School
and some others but ...... as pertains to Greenspring. Am I
correct in that your understanding, as someone who partici-
pated in the actual work with this thing, that we were
talking about a high school north of Route 60?
Ms. Roberts: That was my understanding. Now, of course,
reading the exact wording of the Bond Issue I am not really
sure exactly that .........
Sullivan: That was not there .... that was generic...
Ms. Roberts: ..... but that was our understanding. That to
relieve our area of the County - to relieve Monacan and
Midlothian High Schools and hopefully by doing that be able
to rollback from other overcrowded conditions ..... this
Greenspring, at that point in time, never really entered
into anybody's equation at that time.
Mr. Sullivan: Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Charlie, before you speak ..... I want everybody to
speak that wants to and take as much time but I would like
to have a show of hands of the remaining people that intend
on speaking for ........
Mr. Applegate: We haven't gotten to the opposition.
28
Mr. Ramsey:
.... speaking for?
Mr. Currin:
..... speaking for?
Mr. Sullivan: I see three.
Mr. Currin:
..... three? Okay. Thank you.
Mr. Ellis: I was going to say good morning, Mr. Chairman, but
I will say good afternoon. I would like to read a letter to
you from Tom Miller who was the Bond Coordinator for the
Bermuda District in the '88 Bond Campaign - he could not be
here today - and then read some remarks of my own. Tom
says:
"Dear Mr. Currin:
In the summer and fall of 1988, parents and citizens of this
County engaged in a large scale campaign. This campaign
informed County residents of capital improvements included
in the $136 million dollar School Bond Referendum. As we
all know, this grass-roots effort led to the overwhelming
passage of Chesterfield County's largest school Bond
Referendum. As you know, we spoke to a number of organiza-
tions in the Bermuda District regarding the School Bond and
everytime we spoke we told the voters what they would get
for the 136 million dollars. One of those items was a new
northern area high school to relief Midlothian and Monacan
High Schools. It was to open in 1992. To build it, how-
ever, we must have a school site. No site will be
perfect...no site will be cheap in that part of the
County...no site will satisfy all concerning traffic flow
and property values. If there were such a site in that
area, it disappeared from the market probably in 1960. We
must get on with the commitment we made in 1988 to the
voter, not doing so will make passage of any future School
Bond Referendums most difficult, if not impossible. If
there is a better site, great, I am all for it. But the
delays and controversy perceived or otherwise must stop for
the benefit of our kids. We are already at least one year
behind schedule.
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Miller"
And for myself ....... I am Charlie Ellis and I am happy to be here
with you this afternoon. As you know, I reside in the
Midlothian District and I have two children in public schools.
I am a proud veteran of the Core Committee of the 1988 Bond Issue
Campaign. I will start with the closing point of some past
speeches. If you cut corners on public education, you put the
future at risk. At issue today is whether to appropriate
29
$2,000,000 to assist the Chesterfield County public schools and
purchasing the Riverton site for the development of a northern
area high school and elementary school manded by the
1988 .... mandated, I beg your pardon, by the 1988 Bond Referendum
and, while we are at it, a new County park along the James River.
This decision ought to be easy. The School Administration picked
the site with your approval following your April suggestion that
if you liked the site you would contribute toward its acquisi-
tion. There is a reason for this site purchase just as there is
a reason for a new high school. Costs for other school sites
escalated out of the reach of the School Board which was staying
within the financial constraint of the 1988 Bond Referendum. The
Bond Referendum mandated a new high school because we all knew
that existing high schools serving the northern area would each
have several hundred students too many by 1992. The high school
additions idea was opposed because it wasn't what we voted for in
1988 and it wasn't what we want for our children in an already
crowded world. You, the Supervisors, responded rather well to an
informed and generous public opinion by opening the discussions
leading to this Riverton site acquisition. The Riverton site may
present some difficulties not present at other sites which in any
event the School Administration could not afford. Now, let's get
some things straight. The soils are fair to good; the average
slope of 2% is less than at the Bailey Bridge School site; the
limited wetland impacts will be mitigated; the Department of
Transportation already owns the right-of-way to necessary road
widening; the sewer line, which got some play in yesterday's
paper, is not attributable to the schools which in any event can
do without it if necessary. The only pig-in-a-poke aspect of
this site is that buffer areas, not now required, will come into
play after September 20th if the site plan, going through the
normal County review process, is not approved by then. This is
why we have to move it on this appropriation. We also need to
understand the public benefits - the new school is needed to
alleviate overcrowding in our other schools. People without
school~children may not have a keen appreciation of this need but
for most of us it means a lot; we regard uncrowded classrooms as
a right, not a luxury. As extra benefits the County gets a park
and an elementary school site. As with every other dollar spent
on schools, with this $2,000,000 you are buying the essential
prerequisite to a productive work force, a well adjusted adult
community and an educated citizenry ready to do its part in
advancing human society. You are fulfilling the public mandate
for a new northern area high school. You are also acting in
accordance with your own stated beliefs in the importance and
priority of public education in the County. Please vote yes to
this appropriation and let's get on with the job. Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, sir.
Mr. Henricks: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board, my name is Jim
Henricks. I am from the Clover Hill District. I was a
member of the Core Committee for the 1988 Bond Issue
representing the Clover Hill District. We have a moral
30
obligation to our citizens who overwhelmingly approved the
1988 School Bond Issue to build a high school in the
northern area. I do not feel that the alternative that was
put forth of building additions to other high schools is an
educationally sound alternative. If not the Riverton site,
will that be our only alternative. Questions have been
raised by opposition about whether this site will serve the
needs of the students that it is intended to do; that is
basically what I am here to address. I want to talk about
the Riverton site as a location for the northern area high
school. It will adequately serve the needs of the students
in that area and fulfill our promise of the 1988 Bond Issue
to relieve the overcrowding at Midlothian High School and
Monacan High School. I have been involved on various
committees for five years with regard to boundary changes
and many .... at many schools. Currently, I am the Chairman
of the Middle School Boundary Committee which is reviewing
boundary changes required because of our new middle school
in Manchester which will be converted to a middle school.
Eight out of the nine middle schools have parents on that
committee; it is not a small task that we are undertaking.
In our endeavor to look at the middle school boundaries and
trying to establish feeder patterns we have been trying to
look at what is going to happen at the high school level.
When we look at Riverton serving the area north of 60 we
find that currently there exists 1,538 students within that
area that will be served by this high school; that does not
include Salisbury. In trying .... we are not the committee
for the high school but in trying to guess what is going to
happen I would say Salisbury will be a .... on the bubble.
But there will be 1,538 students north of 60 right now. The
Riverton site will reduce the travel distance for the
majority of these students in that attendance zone. Again,
Riverton site will relieve the two schools that we said it
would relieve. Not only do we need to relieve Midlothian
and Monacan but we have another problem. With the closure
of Manchester as a high school, being replaced by the Bailey
Bridge High School, which is now the new Manchester High
School as of last night, we have an additional 500 students
that have to be accommodated by these three high schools in
the area east of Monacan, north of 360 and south of 60.
There are three parents of students who will be attending
the new high schools that were on the middle school
committee - they all feel that their children will be going
to Monacan so we have put another 500 children there. Those
parents happen to be in the Clover Hill District. I would
also like to address some issues that have been raised about
alternative sites, growth, etc. Questions about this site,
where it is because of where growth is going to be, is it a
proper site? The question isn't about where growth is going
to be. This high school is addressing students who are
already here. We don't have to worry about growth, we will
fill that high school with students that are here. It is
houses that were built 10 years ago that are, through the
31
aging process of our neighborhoods, who will be providing
the students to these high schools. In other words
Roxshire, etc., the population is increasing at the high
school coming out of the elementary school areas. There has
been concerned expressed that this school is not in the
center of the population to be served. Well, if you look at
our 50 schools, I think there are about 2 that are in the
center of the population they will serve. We cannot always
fit the happy medium; if we were, we would have to put our
schools on wheels so they could move westward and south.
Greenspring is a potential site; it is too far south; it
would add transportation distance for transporting our
students and one of the no-nos in looking at boundaries for
schools, in order to bring school .... children to the
Greenspring school site, we would have to pass other high
schools to get those children there. Gentlemen, you gave us
your wisdom and courage before and we took the largest Bond
Issue to the parents. I ask now you apply that same wisdom
and give us a site for our children. Thank you.
Mr. C~rrin: Thank you, sir. Anyone else like to speak for?
Mr. Brown: Mr. Currin, Members of the Board, Mr. Ramsey, I
should preface my remarks by saying I am here in a rather
unusual capacity. As you know you, as a body, appointed me
to represent Midlothian starting in July on the School
Board. It's not July so I guess the best statement is that
I am a very concerned citizen at this point in time. Last
night, when I attended the School Board meeting some pundit
said that the real advantage to being on the Board was that
you get a softer seat during public hearings and I think I
can attest to that fact at this point in time. I think
everything has been said and I don't need to reiterate most
of -the things. I want to tell you though that as a very
interested parent and citizen at this point and soon to be a
Midlothian District representative on the Board I have taken
it upon myself to assure myself that the decision that the
School Board has made in conjunction with you in recommend-
ing the current Riverton site for a northern area high
school and elementary school is the right one. I am
convinced that we are dealing with a situation where there
is no acceleration or no special handling required or re-
quested for this particular site in County processes to
circumvent any law that may be on the books or potential. I
spent a good deal of last weekend walking over this property
thoroughly particularly the area that we planned to put the
high school and the elementary school on; you've heard about
the grade; you've heard from the experts; you've heard from
the Bio Habitat's representative, consultant to the School
System, this is a project which under the constraints we are
dealing with is a buildable project without damage to the
environment and within the law as it's now stated. I am
convinced that the appraisal is an accurate one .... that we
are getting land, while expensive, is going to put a school
32
where it should be. And I think that is the big point. I
have looked at all the sites that were under consideration
by the Boards throughout this process. I have looked at
what we anticipate to be the enrollments at Midlothian and
Monacan High Schools and quite frankly let me turn around
the numbers you're getting .... you've been given and point
out that we're talking about 450 students over capacity at
each of these schools in 1993. You can imagine what that
does to the ability of School Administration to run adequate
programs in these schools and you can also imagine what it
does to the competition that students have in participating
in activities in those schools. That's one thing that came
out very loud and clear about this County's decision to
build schools at about the size of 1,750 for high schools.
The residents did not feel comfortable with schools much
bigger than this if they can afford them simply because it
creates very difficult competition problems for their
students in participating in extracurricular activities,
special honor activities, etc. So basically, I have
determined that I think the School Board's decision, which
of course I did not participate in formally, is the right
one and consequently I would urge you, at this point in
time, to support the request for additional funds to build
the school in the site on the Riverton property. Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, sir. Anyone else here that would like
to speak for? Okay. We will take a break ..... we will take
a five minute break before we start the people that want to
speak against it.
It was generally agreed the Board would recess for five minutes.
Reconvening:
Mr. Currin: We will continue the public hearing and we will
now ask for opposition, if they would come forward.
Mr. Thompson: Mr. Currin, Members of the Board, it has been a
long morning. I still don't understand exactly why we
having opposing sides and against sides. We, the opposi-
tion, support a northern area high school and elementary
school. We want a northern area high school and elementary
school. Let there be no doubt about it. We do not .... we're
not considering pod sides .... we're not saying go back to any
other alternatives. We are saying we want the schools.
Period. The problem we have is with the Riverton site
itself. I am going to go down the School Board's proposal
on this piece of property that I think all of you got at the
Monday meeting and try to go and address each of those
33
issues that were presented by the School and maybe some of
the experts that presented information in the beginning to
reiterate on some of those points.
The negotiated price of $4 million dollars. We have gone
this $26,667 number a number of times. The issue is here we
have 90 acres for a school and 60 acres for a park; the 60
acres that were delegated for the park, even on the Riverton
Subdivision Plan, was unusable propertY by the developer.
It's either in the floodplain; it's either wetlands; but it
is not property that the developer could develop into
saleable lots. We are then asked to pay the $26,667 as an
average price for land that had no value...or that had
little value ..... to the developer. Now we have heard that
the riverfront property is very, very valuable and I don't
think that, you know, that I am going to get into an argu-
ment about whether riverfront property is valuable. We have
to determine whether we can use it or not; the developer
can't use it; other developers in the area that I have
talked with state that riverfront property in the floodplain
is more of a detriment than it is an absolute consideration;
it costs something to maintain those properties so that
those houses would have views to the river and maintain the
wetlands and maintain the floodplain in those areas. So
what I'm saying is what we are really looking at here is 90
acres for a school and how much of that is usable that were
paying a premium for. The appraiser, Mr. Perdue, which we
asked to be here, said in his appraisal, and you all have
copies of that appraisal, and I'll quote right from the
front page...it's not my number, it's his number, "the value
of the approximate 90 acres proposed for acquisition is
estimated at $20,000 per acre or $1,800,000". In his
appraisal he assumes that water and sewer is to the site.
Please remember that the Riverton site has no water, no
sewer and no proper access for a school at the present time.
As it now sits, all three of those conditions are factuals.
He then states that I have estimated the damages to the
residue in the amount of $1,710,000 as discussed in the
report. My question then became why are we buying property
that is so valuable that the County must pay damages and
then the question came about is do we really owe damages if
we had a willing seller and a willing buyer and we didn't
take this land by eminent domain or condemnation. I don't
know the answer to that question but I'm saying to you,
gentlemen, that the value is...the land value is $1,810,000
by our own appraisal and the damages are $1,700,000 so we
are asked to pay almost in damages what the value ..... what
the land is valued at which does not make sense to me. It
looks like to me that we would be better off to buy the
whole tract and then we wouldn't have any damage question.
The next question that comes up is that Mr. Ashinoff owns
the next tract to it; how much liability do we have as a
County to Mr. Ashinoff? We are damaging his property.
34
You've heard an economist say that a school is an asset and
that people don't mind living around it. Well, that's not
quite true. The real estate people tell us that land values
depreciate where we have run them up against a school,
particularly when you're going to put it in a very expen-
sive, upscaled neighborhood. The land values decrease. I
don't think that we can have any argument on that issue.
But where do the damages stop? I know that you say that if
we don't take any ..... Mr. Ashinoff's land, we don't owe him
any damages. But we owe the residue developer in this
project $1,700,000. I don't understand .... I truly don't
understand. The question has come up and I quoted in a
pamphlet that in my opinion the highest and best use of the
subject property is for development under R-40 zoning. You
can't, and I am not saying by any means that I expected the
appraiser to say the best use is a school site. I didn't
look at that at all. But what he is saying is that based on
the way he valued the whole tract he did a sellout calcula-
tion, and you all have it before you, as to how many lots
were in the Riverton Subdivision, how much the proposed
selling price was, what the capitalization return was and he
calculated what a price would be, a discounted price. We
are buying, and he also said in his report, that this is
some of the most desirable residential real estate in
Chesterfield County and we propose to put 2 schools and a
park on that site. We think that that is an inappropriate
use of that land and the appraiser obviously thinks that the
most...the highest and best use of that property is for
residential use.
The utility requirements. I say that the appraiser said
that, based on water and sewer being available to the site,
the land was worth $20,000 an acre. When the subdivision
plan went to Planning in the County, you Board of
Supervisors ..... I don't have the date but I think it was
back in January .... told the developers that if they
developed there were conditions that they had to meet in
order to develop this piece of property. Again, I am
quoting from the Planning and Zoning requirements, "the
developer shall extend a 16 inch water main along Robious
Road from the intersection of Robious and Salisbury to the
site". Let's stop right there. What does that now cost the
taxpayer. If we buy the site for a school and a park, we
the taxpayer are asked to run that line, not the developer.
That site...that cost has been estimated, based on County's
estimates, of $462,300; we have no doubt that that is an
accurate number. The County knows how much a 16 inch water
line will cost and it doesn't make any difference whether it
goes up and down hills or where it goes, it is still going
to cost $462,300 and they were dollars that we the taxpayer
were not going to put out. The sewer is another issue. The
James River Trunk Line is coming up the James River; we
think it's going to cost us $9.6 million for 8 and 1/2
miles; it's about eight...that a little over a million
35
dollars a mile. I don't know how we can equate how much we
would have gotten from the developer to offset part of that
cost at this point and neither does your Utilities Depart-
ment but also in the sub .... in the requirements for Riverton
it states, "In conjunction with the Board of Supervisors'
approval on January 27, 1988, a private sewage pump station
and force main to serve this development, the developer
shall do the following:
The developer shall construct and dedicate to the
County an interceptor trunk sewer along the property
frontage on the James River to be used as part of the
James River Trunk. The size shall be determined by the
Utilties Department."
After some discussions yesterday, as late as five o'clock or
four-thirty over in the Utility Department, I came to the
conclusion or I was informed that this doesn't mean that the
developer was going to be required to pay for the trunk line
for the link of his property that fronts the James River but
rather he would be required to pay for an 8 inch sewer line
that runs along that length that would feed into it. How
much that cost is I don't know. But if we say it is the
same or approximate cost as the water trunk that is $90 a
foot and we're looking at some fairly serious dollars that
we as taxpayers would have had provided by the developer
when he developed this site. Now, to get back to the
appraisal. We were asked to $1,710,000 damages; now, we
turn around and we supply water and sewer to that site at
our cost and there are a 100+ lots remaining in the Riverton
Subdivision Plan that now have water and sewer to them that
was put there at taxpayer expense. I don't understand why
we can't say or why it isn't additional cost that we are
going to incur by developing this site for schools and park.
They are definitely costs that we have to come up with.
The next issue that comes up is the road that goes in...Mr.
Cuicci...is he gone...?
Mr. C~icci: Here I am, right here.
Mr. ~hompson: Oh, would you mind putting up your slide again,
please, let me point out a couple of things here. This
road...oops .... that was a great one...that was fine. This
roadway that comes in off of Robious Road...you can see...it
comes in off Robious Road, circles around and goes back to
the park and then goes...branches off into the schools. You
will notice that three little tiny dots coming off
here...these little stub roads right here? They go... the
Riverton Subdivision. All hundred remaining lots then feed
out to that two lane road that services those schools which
then turn around and flows out to Robious Road. So not only
do we have the school traffic on that road and the park
traffic but we have all the lots from Riverton coming out
36
onto these stub roads. The next question that came up in
our mind, who pays for this road and how much does that road
cost? Nobody knows. Believe me, no one knows at this
point. The best estimate that Mr. McCracken could give me
yesterday was it will cost as much as the improvements to
Robious Road. Correct? We estimate and the Highway Depart-
ment estimates that that road will cost somewhere between
$150 and $200 a foot to construct. Fair estimate, Mr.
McCracken? (Pause) A $150 to $200 a foot.
Mr. McCracken: That's close...it's probably more than that.
Mr. Thompson: Okay. That is over 6,000 feet. That is $900,000
to put the road just in that site and we are required to put
stub roads off for the developer at taxpayer expense. If
this is the site we want, they are the costs we have to pay.
You will also notice on this map that there is no wetlands
that are shown as the mitigated wetlands. When we first
started this thing a week ago when we picked up this map it
had five designated areas in it. They were wetland areas,
they disappeared. They are shown but you have to know where
to look for them but they were actually drawn out to- the
side that showed where they were. But we have five
identified wetland areas on the County site for that school.
You have got to understand that that high school pod
site--just a footprint of the high school is 275,000 square
feet--that is a big footprint to drop down in the
middle--that is the number that was given us by the con-
struction department yesterday. Okay. There is a second
story...I'm sorry. I beg to differ but the construction
department gave us the 275,000 dollar...275,000 square foot
number yesterday. These are riplets I think of the way it
was described, the four of them that come down through the
property that run through the high school--two of them run
through the high school. We don't know how they are going
t~ be diverted or saved or anything else at this point. But
I'm going to get off of that. The utilities, the costs that
we have added to this project by just this site location are
phenomenal and have nothing to do with Mr. Fulghum's
estimate that we are going to put this school in target on
Budget because we can take this two schools and move them
anywhere in the County and once you get the site worked on
you can build them here as well as there and .be in the same
Budget--it ain't going to cost you anymore to build that
high school or that elementary school at any site once you
get the site work done. We originally came out and said
that we thought that by the time you laid the first brick on
these schools you would have eight to ten million dollars in
this sites. Your own estimates came up this morning just to
get down this far have come up to 7.8 million so you are
coming pretty close to our numbers. The sewer--let's back
up to utilities--the sewer was said in the meeting that we
had Monday and on your sheet here, July, 1992, now they are
saying hopefully, September, 1992. What the cost is, ask
37
the Utilities people but they don't know. We don't know
yet, it hasn't been put out to bid, we don't know what the
costs are. The wetlands. We keep coming to wetlands, back
and forth, back and forth, there are five designated wet-
lands on that map, maybe they are, maybe they aren't. We
have had an expert testify that says that they are, about
seven acres of wetlands on this piece of property. What is
going to happen to the County if this scenario happens and
it is a very probable scenario at this point. We buy this
piece of track or issue a contract for this piece of land
and the next person that comes in on us and we get it
approved and we circumvent the Chesapeake Bay Protection
Act. We do all of those things. The next person that comes
in if we have seven acres of wetlands on this tract, is the
Corps of Engineers. I talked with Mr. Bruce Williams in the
Norfolk office of the Corps of Engineers and asked him if we
had final site plan, how long would it take us to get a
permit. He told me that it would take a minimum of six
months and it probably could take as long as eighteen months
to get a permit to disturb the wetlands. Now, you talk
about looking for another school site or do you talk about
having $4,000,000 tied up in a piece of property that we
don't have any approvals on. Still a hairy issue. Add to
that and it is my understanding that the EPA has been
apprised of this site and if they come in on it we then have
to contend with the EPA, the Chesapeake Bay Preservation,
Friends of the James, and the Corps of Engineers. How much
of these wetlands...somebody said we don't have any idea
what this act is all about. Now, which way would you like
me to show it? The view...
Mr. Ramsey: You can stand over here if you like.
Mr. Thompson: Okay. Excuse me. This is a map that was prepared
by engineering in Chesterfield County. They...there is a
requirement of the Chesapeake Bay Protection Act. This is
done by one of the tests that are done to determine what the
wetlands are in the County and can be submitted to the
foundation prior to the September 20th deadline and it has
to be approved by them and these are in the engineers, Mr.
McElfish, is he here?
Mr. McElfish: Yes.
Mr. Thompson: Mr. McElfish's opinion was that these are the
maximum areas that could be construed as protected areas
under the Chesapeake Bay Protection Act. This area in here,
right here, see the lower cross lines, they are the protect-
ed area. Based on this map of the County, we are talking 50
to 60% of that total property is in the protection area. If
we want to circumvent the law, we all know what the law is,
we know where the protection areas are. As a municipality,
John, if we want to do that, we can certainly do it. Mr.
Sullivan's approach was if you know the speed limit is going
38
to change, you are not going to slow down. Well, we know
that these are protection areas and we also know morally we
should not try to circumvent that law. We can if we want,
if we do not circumvent it, Mr. Ramsey's statement at the
Monday meeting was, we don't have a site. Because we don't
have enough property to put a school so we are know between
the issues. What are we going to do? Are we going to buy a
school site that we know is in a protected area or are we
just going to disregard what we know is coming up and say
let's get on with this project. I don't think we should, I
think that we should consciously proceed and not try to
circumvent an existing law and we still have, even if we get
around it, we still have the EPA and the Corps of Engineers
to contend with. That could slow us down considerably, far
more so than looking for another site or going back to a
site that was already there. The fear that has been in-
stilled in the public that you are going to go back pod
sites or that your are not going to give us a high school or
an elementary school, I think is unfounded. I haven't seen
any members of this board say we are not going to give you a
high school or an elementary school if you don't buy this
site. But this is not the only site in Chesterfield County
and that is a fact, that's not a hypo...you know, a hypo-
thetical situation, it's a fact gentlemen and there are
sites available for less money that are flat that have
water, that have sewer, that don't require million dollar
roads to service them. I would hope that if you look at the
numbers, we have already taken you five million seven and
worked it up to some number, I don't know what it is but the
numbers that we have to have...the Robious Road is another
issue. We were told that Robious Road was going to be
improved. The Robious Road extension is only 4,000 feet.
The distance between Salisbury Road and the uppermost
eastern corner of this property is approximately 5,200 feet.
Again, I asked Mr. McCracken yesterday how much of that road
are we going to use as it know is and how much are we going
to improve. We are going to use 1,200 feet of that road as
it now stands. We are only going to fix up the shoulders.
We are going to take a curve which is approximately 4,000
feet and his number of $670,000 is a bare bone assessment
and he'll admit that. The $600,000 is the cost of the road
as he now sees it. The $70,000 is to put a signal in, a
turn signal or a stoplight to signalize it has no cost in
the $670,000 for any right-of-way. Now, before I get
attacked I understand that part of right-of-way or some of
the right-of-way or all of the right-of-way may be already
dedicated. It is shown on the Virginia Department of
Transportation...tax map that the Virginia Department of
Transportation has some of these right-of-ways but they are
so old Mr. McCracken's words again were we don't know what
we exercised or not. At this point, we have asked the
Highway Department to come in and tell us what we own and
what we don't own. But we don't know. So gentlemen when
you look at the 670 number it can only go up, it isn't
39
coming down, it is only going up and we don't have any of
the utility cost in there to move the poles on the roadside.
So this road honestly could be said that it is going to cost
a minimum of $670,000 and it can cost us a $1,000,000 plus.
That takes care of all the numbers on your list. They were
extremely difficult to find but we feel comfortable and your
people will back it up. The other thing I'd like to point
out, in all the reams of paper that I have been through from
the County Planning Department to Utilities to Engineering
to the School Board, I have not found one letter, not one,
that said the Riverton site was an appropriate school site.
We have letters and you've seen them in the newspaper, that
the Riverton school site, in our opinion, let me quote one
of them real quick and I will be off of that. This is a
letter from Mr. Riblett which has been quoted in the paper,
October 25th, 1989, last paragraph, "We have real concerns
that this property may not be appropriate for development as
a school site." Every piece of...of documents that we have
come up with, we weren't looking for things to support our
case, they just came and every department in this County,
Utilities, Engineering, Transportation, nobody has said this
is an appropriate site. Why are we here asking you for $2.2
million, when we ourselves are not convinced that it's an
appropriate site and if you give it to us, the only thing I
have been able go come up with is, we are going to back to
ask you for some more because this is just the beginning and
if this is the situation we want to be in, if want to
circumvent the law, this is where we are going to be and
that is the way you need to vote for. Now, I am going to
tell you one last little story for Mr. Currin's benefit. In
medieval times...or Mr. Sullivan's, he said we didn't want
to buy a pig-in-a-poke. Well, in medieval times when you
went .down to the circus there, you bought a pig-in-a-poke
and~ they put the pig in an old burlap bag and that was the
~0ke and when you got home, you had a pig-in-a-poke and that
is what you wanted. But some unscrupulous vendors used to
put cats in those pokes and when you got home you opened the
bag and let the cat out and gentlemen, that's where we
are...let's let the cat out. Let's look at what we are
doing and look at the costs associated...associated. I feel
very confident that this act is not a fiscal responsible
act. We need to...we need this schools but we don't need to
spend this kind of money for this particular site. As far
as...you know I have heard the other argument about what the
developers are making and all that...I think they ought to
make it, quite frankly, I think it's wonderful if they can
make ten times that. The cost of the profits to the
developer have nothing to do with it but the cost to the
taxpayers have everything to do with it and we are not
putting a price tag on education because there are other
sites. Mrs. Palmer from the Salisbury area is going to talk
on the road situation going into the school and approaching
the schools, if you would please.
40
Mr. Currin: Before you leave, I did not mean to imply that
anyone is coming to...in opposition does not want a northern
area high school.
Mr. Thompson: No, sir.
Mr. Currin: I didn't mean that.
Mr. Thompson: I didn't think that you did but we had been
accused by the opposition many times over of the last few
weeks that we opposed the schools. We do not oppose the
schools...I don't know how that gets out. Just like I don't
know how it gets out that you all are going to go back to
pod sites if we don't get this site. I just think there are
unfounded rumors that we need to clear up.
Mrs. Palmer: Mr. Chairman and members of the Board, my name is
Faye Palmer and I live in Salisbury Subdivision in
Midlothian District and yes, I am the president of the
Homeowners Association but know I am not speaking in that
capacity. I sent a flyer out last Thursday to our over 1200
residents which as of this date has not been delivered; so
therefore, I cannot have a consensus as to what the majority
of our homeowners feel and I would not assume that my
feelings are the majority or...or if they are not so I will
speak myself. I would like to answer one thing that came up
by the first speaker on quote, ."the other side," although we
all want a high school. I think that's been made perfectly
clear, we all want a new high school. I am only opposed to
this site. I cannot remember it was a doctor, the gentle-
man's name, but he had a Salisbury Courier with him and he
said that the Salisbury area was concerned with transporta-
tion, that we had an ulterior motive. Well, since I wrote
that article, I guess I can answer it. Yes, and I have
talked to Mr. Sullivan about this. A few months ago, I
believe you will remember, Mr. Sullivan, we were at another
meeting and I said, you know the Riverton site if it were to
be chosen really concerns me because of Robious Road
and...do you remember me saying that? And, you agreed that
Robious Road was a concern. That is what I was addressing
in the Salisbury Courier. Robious Road is a winding, narrow
road that I thought would have to be addressed and that is
what I was referring to. I have also heard here today that
there are a 1,000 - maybe 2,000 petitions or letters, etc.,
that have been signed. I feel like, and tell me if I am
wrong, that most of these petitions were supporting a
northern area high school - was it the Riverton site or a
northern area high school?
Mr. Sullivan: If you're asking me, Faye, the ones that I have
here support the Riverton, I'll read it to you, "I support
financing for the new northern high school at Riverton" ....
41
Ms. Palmer: Alright, how many of those are
school .... ?
for the high
Mr. Sullivan: ..... and I could give you; "We the undersigned
support the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors'
decision to provide additional funding for the purchase of
the Riverton site."
Ms. Palmer: .... but they're your top ones. Your bottom big
stack because I came up there and looked at them .....
Mr. Sullivan: oh, those letters?
Ms. Palmer: ...they are supporting a northern area high
school.
Ms. Sullivan: That's right.
petitions I had .....
I thought you said petitions. The
Ms. Palmer: ...the petitions .... no, I meant the letters that
are on the .... that big stack that was shown is supporting a
northern area high school which we indeed support also. I
just want, you know, to make that clear. I also saw where
one gentleman spoke and said that we can do without the
sewers. He said you know if the trunk line doesn't come up
that is okay because we can do without the sewers; yes we
can if we put a pumping station in which has been estimated
to cost $800,000 so that is something that needs to be
considered also. Now, I said I was going to speak on
transportation and I am.
I have a fear for our children that must travel Robious Road
by bus or car. It is my understanding that this road will
be ~improved 4,000 of the 5,200 feet that exist between
Salisbury Road and the front tip of the Sowers property.
Even with additional shoulders, I cannot think of any part
of this section of Robious that would be safe to handle all
the traffic this school/park site would generate in addition
to the residents now using Robious Road and those new
residents will make, will make their home in this corridor.
The Transportation Department has come up with a figure of
$670,000 to do these bear minimum improvements on this
winding, narrow road and this does not include any
right-of-way that might not now be available or the fee for
moving utility poles. It does include the cost of signali-
zation which speaks for itself in what volume of traffic is
projected for Robious Road. On approaching the school/park
site, one will turn onto a two lane road that must serve not
only these schools and park but the 109 subdivision homes
that will encompass the remaining of the Sowers property.
The Transportation Department project 1,090 daily estimated
trips on the average coming from this subdivision - that is
10 trips per household - via the stub roads onto the single
road serving this area to join the 639 estimated projected
42
trips from the elementary school, the 353 estimated project-
ed trips a day for the park and the 2,083 trips from the
high school for a total of 4,165 daily trips on a two lane
road serving the high school, elementary school and park.
If an accident or natural disaster were to block this road,
how would emergency vehicles get to the scene or how would
anyone even leave the area - our children could be trapped
in that area - you cannot send a helicopter in to take that
number of people out. In a memorandum dated August 29,
1989, from Richard McElfish to Chesteen Smith, he quotes the
Transportation Department's concern with this site. The
report states and I quote, "If this property is not pur-
chases entirely for a school/park use" (and that is the
entire Sowers property) "the subdivision must designed to
separate the residential property and minimize the traffic
impact on the school/park. This has not been done and,
indeed, Mr. Sowers has been given an exception in his zoning
for a public road subdivision, the requirement for a second
access, unless the school access will be the only one". The
Transportation Department also states in the memorandum and
I quote again, "The Transportation Department has concerns
that this property may not be appropriate for development as
a school/park site. If this site is developed as such,
significant road improvements will be necessary". The plan
for this developer does not even include the minimum im-
provements mentioned by this department because they said
that the subdivision should be separated and it is not being
done. I heard something on the radio this morning coming to
the Board meeting this morning and it was quote that I .... it
was Dick Sayers (Sale?) and it was his voice so I'm sure it
was his quote. He said they asked him to give some good
reasons why the high school should be there and the
elementary school and he said it's somewhat centrally
located. To what? From what I understand the high school
will not serve Salisbury Subdivision - it serves Robious
Middle School - Salisbury Subdivision does not attend
Robious Middle School, it attends Midlothian Middle School.
Therefore, from what I have been told, it will not serve
Salisbury which is the closest neighborhood to the new
school site. The kids that will be coming to this school
will be coming as far away as Bon Air to this school down
Robious Road. So it is not centrally located, in fact, on
one side of the site you have a river, on the other side of
the site you have Powhatan County, so there is no way it can
ever serve those two areas.
My other concern, as the President of the Salisbury Home-
owners Association, is will Salisbury be divided between
these two schools? Will they take Brigstock, which is the
back entrance, and send the children who are only a few .... ,
well, just over a thousand feet away from this site, to that
school but will Winterfield area go to Midlothian and what
will that do to my neighborhood and our way of ..... to have a
neighborhood feeling. So I have a great concern on that. I
43
have heard from some of my neighbors, very few, the ones
that maybe have seen something, heard it on the radio,
whatever .... the majority that I have heard from are in favor
of a high school, all of them in favor of a high school but
not this site. I had one lady to call me yesterday, which I
thought was very interesting, she immediately attacked me
and and said, "Why are you trying to do away with my schools
for my children?" I said, "wait a minute, I am not trying
to do this. Let me explain." And she said, "by the way,
where is the school? Where is it going to be?" I said,
"you don't know where it is going to be?" She said, "no".
I said, "then how do you know what I am even against on this
site". She said, "oh, I guess I don't." So I .... that's...I
wish that we could have the information that we have dug
deeply for this information and I think it's very good
information and a reason for not accepting this site.
And I am going to touch only briefly on the wetlands issue.
I think what was said on Monday by Mr. Ramsey speaks to it
all, and that was at the meeting for those who didn't attend
that we had down there, an information meeting. If we delay
the acceptance of this property as the new school site and
follow the guidelines of the Chesapeake Bay Preservation
Act, we could not use the site. And he said, and I believe
that is a quote, "If you choose...if this Board chooses to
ignore the (????) purpose, this property still will
have to be, if I am not mistaken, under the Virginia Marine
Resources Commission, the State Water Control Board and, at
the very least, the Army Corps of Engineers." Approval, I
understand, can be long and an involved process. What will
that do for our timetable? This is wetlands. No one is
denying that. Even if you don't go by the Act, which I feel
is a .moral obligation, that's my opinion, then we are going
to have to at least have these departments look at it. At
first glance, this property might look inviting but it could
be compared to buying a car - it might look great on the
outside but does it have an engine. You can't just buy
something without knowing whether it works and this site
just does not seem to work. Thank you very much.
Mr. Currin:
Thank you, ma'm. Anyone else like to speak?
Ms. Palmer: Oh, I meant to introduce Mr. Henry Jones and he is
past Chairman of the School Board of Chesterfield County.
Mr. Jones: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board and Mr. Ramsey,
my hesitancy in speaking is that I have to oppose my good
friend and dedicated public servant Tom Fulghum. Tom is a
first class act. I just want to say to you that I am not
anti-schools; I have spent over 40 years connected with the
Chesterfield County School System. I believe that almost
single-handedly that I was the only School Board member that
spoke in every District of Chesterfield for our first fund
addition for schools and I have supported every Bond issue
44
since then and I support Chesterfield schools to the highest
and I am very proud of them. Gentlemen, you are making a
great mistake if you approve funding for this site. Now we
need a northern area high school; we need it badly; we
needed it several years ago and we need it as fast as it can
be constructed but somewhere along the line we have to use a
little logic and this site has so many deficiencies that if
you approve this appropriation I just can't believe you are
using logic. The site is in the corner of the County, on
one side the James River, on the other side Powhatan. One
of the greatest assets of a school site is accessibility.
Now who would buy a pie when they can only use half of the
pie - the site is not accessible from but two sides. It has
so many other things against it but that is one thing that
cost is going to plague the County for years and years
because you're transporting pupils from four sides of the
pie into two sides of the pie. And we are not talking about
cost in 1990, we are talking about costs in 2,020 for
transportation costs and that certainly is something that
everybody has to take into consideration. There are just
numerous negative untold costs. And when you begin fooling
with the Corps of Engineers, your 1993 date of completion is
going to be shot to the moon. Let's face facts; this is not
a good site; there are other sites available I am sure and I
think it's the duty of the Board of Supervisors and the
School Board to make every effort possible to find an
alternative site as quickly as possible. Thank you.
Mr. Currin: Anyone else? ........ anyone else like to speak in
opposition?
Mr. Romantini: Good afternoon, gentlemen. My name is Gene
Romantini and I live on Robious Road right next to the
property. My big concern is the amount of money that's
being spent and we don't really know where it's going to go
yet. Number one, the Governor said on Jan...June 22nd that
the State was going to have a shortfall of $400 million -
what is that going to ...how does that come into
play with the amount of money that Chesterfield County is
going to get from the State? Are we going to have a
shortfall? Can we afford to spend $2 million more and then
have them come back later and ask for more money? We know
we're setting on a floodplain. Two years ago it flooded
twice, all the way across Robious Road. Where is that going
to put our football field? Under water? Anybody walks the
site in the middle of July and says well it doesn't look too
bad go back in December and January. You can't even get to
the river because of the water. I'm going to be short and
brief. I...I am opposed to it...I am opposed to spending
the money...I am all for the schools, we need them. I am
opposed to buying a pig-in-a-poke and I believe, gentlemen,
that's exactly what we're going to buy .... that we don't know
the costs.
45
Mr. C~rrin: Anyone else? ......... anyone else like to speak in
opposition to the site?
Mr. Williams: My name is Fred Williams; I live in River Hills
which is right up the road from the site. I just want to go
on record as being against it. I don't think we have the
numbers; I don't think we have investigated the whole thing
properly and I just wanted to say that I am in agreement
with Mr. Thompson and register that.
Mr. Currin: Anyone else? Well, okay, we will bring it back
before the Board. Okay, Mr. Daniel, you'll start off.
Mr. Daniel: Open mouth and insert foot. I, too, feel very
strongly about the needs for a northern area high school. I
have tried to sort through all the issues that not only were
spoken to today but also those that have been talked about
elsewhere. I have tried to focus in on what is the ultimate
central issue and it's an issue that this Board of Super-
visors shouldn't even be talking about because it is in the
prerogative by not only law but the debt of the School Board
and that is properly identifying school sites. But it is
before us, and it is like a lot of things, once you open a
box and look inside of it and see something you can't walk
away from what that box shows you. And for whether we like
it or not were now in the site business. Out of that issue
comes, you know, is there something that I can learn from
the experience .... might elaborate a little bit on that in
just a minute. The amount of money, $2 million, above the
total $135,000,000 - 35 point whatever million dollars - for
the entire School Bond Referendum that everybody worked for
is a very small percentage - it's only slightly over 1%.
Now, .when you take a complex capital improvement bonds
spread over as many years as that one and to say that you
only missed it by 1%, thereabouts, in any realm of corporate
planning that's doggone good. You can really hang your hat
and thank a lot of people that participated in that planning
process. But one of the things that went awry in the
planning process though, and I've got to throw some zingers
and this is it, ...... comes under trust, accountability,
credibility...is the fact that in 1985 the voters voted for
a 1.5 million dollars to buy a northern area high school
site then; it wasn't done; the money actually came about in
about in 1986 after the bond was actually sold. Many times
we have discussed that with individual School Board members,
staff and so forth. In fact, I very vehemently recollect
how, prior to the 1988 Bond Referendum, that Mr. Applegate
and myself were more boisterous about it and said, "look, on
sites get the sites now, don't tell me you can't; I don't
want to hear any of the negatives as why it can't be done;
you ever heard of options?" If anything this whole
experience is teaching us that. That I know you're up to
your ears in alligators in trying to work this one through
but somebody ought to be looking, as I said earlier, down in
46
the dugout five and ten years from now and hopefully, in
somebody's lower left hand drawer, is the identification of
potential sites that fit the growth patterns in the future
and that somebody starts coming to us and said if growth
continues in this way, which it appears it will, I mean, you
don't have to be a Ph.D. economist to assess which way the
County is going and what the physical needs are is to start
securing options on land that is doable and putting it in
the landbank so that we don't have to deal with these issues
anymore. They have got to be done. So, to me, that's the
lesson that I hope that has been learned from 'this. The
other lesson is that from now on I think it is going to be
very difficult to sell bond issues of which the site isn't
waved before everybody...you can say you vote for this Bond
Issue and not only is it going to come in at this price,
this is the site and everybody go stand on a line...ground
and say this where it's going to be. That's philosophy.
Now down to where we are, you know, philosophy is great but
we still have a problem we've got to develop rapidly the
options here for a northern area high school. As I said
earlier, I support the northern area high school; I support
the middle...I mean elementary school being built as rapidly
as possible in time; but there are also some other
sides to this equation. And in particularly, is the site
doable? I mean, I have heard from the night that we meet in
Executive Session on it; we raised the questions are they
doable? and you know, everybody said yeah, they're doable.
Are the costs right? Yeah, you know, they're pretty close.
In fact, felt at that time that, you know, that after all of
that assurance that everything seems to be fine, it looks
like eureka, you know, thanks to Maury and everybody that
worked so hard to come up with an alternate site that it
looked like at that time that, you know, we were ..... made a
press release about two days after that that we had...the
County had been able to meet its commitments to the public
and you know, come forth with a site which appeared to be
doable. Now, I don't know where I am. I hear many, many
arguments that the costs, Harry, you have just begun to run
the cash register. I also hear all the arguments about
wetlands and reading the paper this morning .... I don't know
if the State ..... Lane, is the State going to participate in
this process. Is there any document you have to send to the
people that were quoted in the morning paper that are going
to help us decide, you know, our wetland issues?
Mr. Ramsey: I am not aware of any.
Mr. Daniel: I mean if we are, if we owe them a letter or we
owe them the time of day, we better get over there and start
smoothing it out because the quotes this morning were not
very nice to local governments .... to the local officials
because not so much that we were .... you know, were trying to
sneak something by, I don't think anybody is sneaking
47
anything by but the fact that we know a lot of information
and we know that a lot of things are going to be put upon us
and we have an obligation to consider those. I am told that
well, Harry, you know, if you don't ..... if you do consider
all, the site may not be doable. I would like to have that
explored more; you know, if the site is proper, I think it
will be doable under the management concepts under the
Chesapeake Bay Act. I would much rather have them as a
friend and on my side going in than down the road discover
that they are not going to be on our side. Look, we have
reached this point now and what...I don't even think sub-
division plans have been submitted yet, have they? You
know, I don't even know what the schedules are; are we going
to bump anybody off the subdivision review agenda to try to
get this one on? Do we really have all of our hoops jumped
through .... I really don't know. I do support the marginal
funding that is required to make the high school work; what
I don't support right this very minute is giving carte
blanche .... here's $2,000,000 .... there is enough money
available in the circulation of dollars now for the School
System to continue to do the engineering, to continue to do
the feasibility, to continue to do the other work including
the site plan review, and to bring that to a conclusion and
then if the conclusion is proper, then that is the appropri-
ate time to make the $2,000,000 appropriation. If all of
these networks don't fit together and the School System has
to walk away from it there is nothing lost; if all the
networks fit, pledge you're going to get the money., you
know, to me these are the type of things that should have
been sorted out through the School Board and the School
System. We met, we pledged that we would, you know, fund
the marginal cost; these were the items that were presented
to us and the choice we did not choose the site .... you know,
we have had some, I think, private little spats about school
sites of which I have probably been accused and probably ....
yOu know, it's a rightful accusation, I have been in the
middle of a few school site disagreements .... probably won't
be the last but to have ever allowed one of this situation's
to develop this large in front of us is breaking new ground.
And by breaking new ground, if the Board of Supervisors
feels comfortable in deciding school sites, then for the
long haul, I think, it's going to cause additional areas of
opportunity for more discussions and more point...counter-
points on school sites, if I am making myself clear. I
think those that know what I am talking about are reading
the message. So, I don't want to say hey, I am against this
site; I don't want to say that I am for this site; I do
expect all of the engineering work and all of the i's dotted
and all the t's crossed and everybody's, you know, comfort-
able before the actual appropriation so I would hope that
we, you know, pledge our support, proceed on with the
technical work that has to be done but let's show a little
bit of wisdom in not voting for the exact appropriation
today until all the work is done.
48
Mr. Currin: Colonel Mayes.
Mr. Mayes: Mr. Chairman, I am for a northern area high school
and an elementary school as was authorized by the '88 Bond
Issue. But I am against buying a pig-in-a-poke. I don't
believe that we ought to pursue the purchase of this land
based on the fact that we do not have EPA approval and we
don't know what problems we are going to run into because of
the wetlands problem. We don't have the Friends of the
James approval; we don't know what problems and what costs
we will run into from that standpoint. And under the
Chesapeake Bay Protection Act and the wetlands problem, we
don't have the information to proceed in putting up the
taxpayers money in this gamble. We don't have the consent
from the Army Corps of Engineers on problems we are going to
run into and what costs. So there is no way that I can
support using the taxpayers' money for the purchase of this
property under the circumstances.
Mr. Currin: Mr. Applegate.
Mr. Applegate: Yes sir, Mr. Chairman. I think the first thing I
would like to say since I am going to be given credit for
opening up the can of worms .... my memory is short but I
would think that perhaps I was the one that, if there was a
second necessary to appropriate the money, I think I
seconded Mr. Sullivan's motion to appropriate the additional
money to purchase a northern area high school site. I am in
complete agreement with it; I know the problems that exist
in Midlothian, Monacan, Courthouse Road; however, and I
certainly support the park; however, my motive was basically
to try to uncover any hidden costs and Mr. Daniel is exactly
right and if I recall the night of the 1985 Bond Referendum,
there were some explicit suggestions made that the schools
gO and secure the site. In fact, I went as far as to say
get a third party, I think Harry, so that it wasn't going to
be a question buying because people have a tendency to put a
gun on the government and suggest they have the money so we
can get higher and higher prices. But the hidden costs
really concerned me and I prefer not to throw stones at past
experiences but I was familiar with the site; I did know
that it was a pretty severe topo there; I did know that
there were some probable wetland problems, drainage problems
and, as Henry Jones has stated, the actual site backing up
to the James River and Powhatan County disturbed me a little
bit. The road issue that has been presented this morning
adds some more concern to me. We had the map, I think, Mr.
Ramsey or Mr. McCracken, we would be only improving Robious
Road from Salisbury Road to the actual entrance to the
elementary site. They talk about 5,200 feet ...............
Mr. Ramsey: That's correct.
49
Mr. Applegate: ...... I guess the thing that sits in the back of
my head now .... suppose, what happens to the traffic coming
to the east from Winterfield Road? It occurs to me that
that particular segment of the road is equally as dangerous
and winding as what we are improving and if we are talking
about total safety, I would have to imagine that some of the
school buses and pupil..pupils who drive to school would be
coming from the Winterfield area and that is only improving
it in one direction which is a half-way. The question that
I guess that I would like to ask Mr. Fulghum, not trying to
put him on the spot but we have heard about the pods which I
don't support, but what happens if we don't purchase this
site?
Fir. Fulghum: Mr. Applegate, I don't think I or anyone else, at
this point, is in a position to say exactly what would
happen. We'd definitely have to go back to the drawing
board.
Mr. Applegate: Well, you know, I really .... the landowner has been
held up by the County in his own zoning process, his site
plan review, for a period exceeding what, Mr. Ramsey, a year
- a year and a half? ............
Mr. Ramsey: I think .......
Mr. Applegate: ....... and I just don't know in all fairness to
him, I mean it, we have held him up .... I mean he has been
ready to proceed with his development and we have held him
up and I think he has been most obliging and I am sure it's
cost him a lot of money. And I am just concerned what
happens in his situation, I mean, he may not agree to even
sell it to you at a later date. But, as I said earlier,
that my motive was to try to uncover hidden costs and I
think it has been shown that there were some hidden costs.
And that concerns me because we didn't do ..... we talk about
credibility and trust .... we didn't do what we said we were
going to do in 1985 when we should have bought the site or
we had the money to buy the site. We have waited since the
1988 Bond Referendum to this time and I was really concerned
that we had to come up with $2,000,000 more of taxpayers'
dollars to make this go. And I am somewhat like Mr. Daniel
concerned that there are going to be some additional costs
and I have got to feel that that is going to come from the
taxpayer as well .... that is the only person we can go to.
And until that is tied down ..... until that is totally tied
down, I am going to have a problem of making an appropria-
tion which could exceed what we're actually paying. It's
simple.
Mr. Sullivan: Mr. Chairman, Members of the Board, Mr. Daniel has
said quite correctly that site selection and acquisition is
the sole function of the School Board. We are not here
today to decide the Riverton site. That's not before us.
50
What is before us is whether or not we will grant to the
School Board an additional $2,000,000 to purchase a site and
we know that that site that they're talking about is River-
ton. A little history on this, as has been pointed out, is
that we can if, as we sit here today, we can bash the School
Board some for not getting property earlier. And I happen
to agree with that and I remember when both Mr. Daniel and
Mr. Applegate among others made that point that we should be
acquiring options, we should have contracts, we should be
out in front. The fact of the matter is we sit here today
and we have to deal with the situation that is and not a
situation as we might like it to be. You will recall that
there have been some problems between this Board and the
School Board and, in an attempt to alleviate those problems,
and it wasn't brand new but Mr. Applegate appointed Mr.
Currin and I to serve on the School Liaison Committee with
members from the School Board. And in good faith, we began
to enter into more friendly discussions, I guess, about how
can we help each other. And after the School Board examined
16 sites and they came to their Board and they came to the
Liaison Committee and said we have examined 16 sites and we
can't come up with one, there is no site that is available
to us of the 16, the Liaison Committee said to them if the
reason that you haven't been able to come to one is because
you do not have the financial resources, then why don't you
re-examine your sites and come back to us and perhaps we may
be able to do something about it. Now that was precipitat-
ed, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board, certainly on my
behalf, by these letters and most recently the petitions
that I would like to make a part of the record. I would
tell you that not only are these letters but they're also my
reply to those folks and, Madam Clerk, I would like it if
you would to take these and make that a part of our perma-
nent record because these folks took a lot of time to do
that. So in response .... thank you .... so in response to the
folks we said let us take a look at it. The School Board
went back to all 16 sites and 2 more that I in particular
asked them to check out and one of them was some .... Huguenot
High School .... and said let's examine all the possibilities.
And they went through all the hoops and jingles and they
came back again and they said this is still number one.
Riverton, of all the sites we looked at, is still the site
that we choose. That's twice that we have done that. Well,
we met in joint Executive Session and we reviewed the sites
that they gave us. At that time it seems to me they had
said we have 6 now of the 16 we would like you to take a
look at and we have 6 and of those 6 Riverton is number one.
And the joint Board examined that and we agreed. That's the
third time ...... Riverton is number one. Now since that time
there are objections. And many of those objections that Mr.
Thompson and Ms. Palmer and some others bring up are valid
objections. But I would characterize those objections, at
least as I heard them today in their presentation, is we
don't know, we don't know .... there comes the time when not
51
all questions are able to be answered at the point we are
today. We do know the facts that are available to us; they
have been presented by the School Board staff and many of
them have been presented by our own County Administrator and
his staff. And there are some questions but those questions
are not the questions to be addressed by the Board of
Supervisors. Those questions need to be addressed by the
School Board. Mr. Chairman, when you allow me to do it, I
am going to make a motion that we make available, with
certain covenants, as Mr. Daniel and I think I heard Mr.
Applegate would want to have, that we would make available
with certain covenants the $2,000,000 and we need to expect
from them that the questions will be answered as was pointed
out and that is why they're there. That they have that
availability; that they have that engineering expertise. I
have not read the engineering reports. I have not read all
the material on the wetlands. That's not where we are. And
I don't think that that's where we ought to be, as Mr.
Applegate pointed out. Where we need to be is to say you
came to us with a problem and that problem is that you are
$2,000,000 short of being where you need to be and our job
is to say will we or will we not appropriate that $2,000,000
and certainly my answer is yes. Now .... are there some
things we're going to pay for...yes, there certainly are.
The School Board in this case is the developer. We are
going to pay for widening Robious Road. I don't think that
is all bad. I see Mr. Morrison and Mr. McCracken, at least
were in the room before, and I think would confirm this
Board, as part of its Six Year Plan, has the widening of
Robious Road in its...in its Plan. That's nothing new. We
don't have the funds for it. And now, through this
development if you will, we will be in a position to pay for
it and all of the citizens who use that road and all the
people who use that road will be better off for it. And I
don't regard that as being a negative issue. I would point
out to you that Robious Road as it is today is no worse than
many roads, unfortunately, that we have in this County in
front of our schools and I would point you to Swift Creek
Middle School as a very good example. We do not, we have
not insisted that schools, I mean that roads be improved
near schools except in this case because we saw a real
reason. I saw that reason and Ms. Palmer said, and I agree
with her when she quoted I had a problem with Robious Road
and I said I want to get that done because I don't think
it's safe. But that is just something that we put on it
ourselves. The concern of what will you do if you don't do
this is not our decision nor our choice to make. It will be
made by the School Board; it will be made with the
recommendation of Dr. Davis and his staff and the School
Board and if, at that point, they think that additions are
the way to go, then gentlemen, that's the way it's going to
be. And we will have no say so over that .... that is their
prerogative and it should be their prerogative. This site
is not everything that everyone would like it to be. I have
52
concerns and the people here have legitimate concerns and I
think those of us who are...the staff has concerns...but
right now, it's the site that we have got. It has been
examined, it has been re-examined, it has been reaffirmed
and the engineering people and the architect who is here
today and his staff, the wetlands people and their staff say
this is doable. And I submit to you that we need to make
this money available. We need to say to them with the
caveats that Mr. Daniel, you have mentioned, and Mr.
Applegate has mentioned, we need to say to them we are
willing to go through with this thing, we want to go through
with it but we want to have the protections and all of the
protections so that thing does not mount up. And if it
costs more money it comes out of their Budget, that's where
the cost is. Don't come back to us. So we need to do that.
I think that is important. I guess I would like to make one
other comment before I turn this thing over to the Chairman
and it has been said before. One of the things that I guess
that I am concerned about .... Mr. Currin and I, I think,
could take some credit in the fact that when we came on the
Board, with the concurrence of the other members of the
Board certainly, but we pushed very hard for this Capital
Improvement Fund. We thought that was something that was
extremely important for us to do. I think it is quite
beneficial and we now have, or will have as of the end of
this month, Mr. Ramsey help me, we will have in that fund
$7.5 million? .........
Mr. Ramsey:
I think ...... Mr. Stegmaier's ..... is there?...$7.5.
Mr. Sullivan: ...... $7.5 million we will have. One of the
disappointments that we have had is that until this, which
in fact we generated, nobody has come to us and said why
don~t you use that money for a future purchase, for some-
thing down the line. I have brought this up at numerous
School Liaison Committee meetings and I just want to get it
out on the table right now that that's what that money is
for. We have made ...... been able to use that money to
purchase library sites and I would hope that we will for
future construction do this because I guess the lesson that
I would like for all of us to learn is that we don't need to
be put in this box again. And we need to be thinking to the
future and looking to the future and I just want to make
sure that everybody understands that that's what that money
is there for and we need to put it to work for the County.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Currin: Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. I don't see .... I can't
add a lot to what has already been said. I would like to
know just some answers to some questions. How much
money .... you've got estimates here about road improvements,
and water and sewer and forgetting the fact that if this
property is bought, if it were not bought that the developer
himself would have improved .... brought the water and done
53
all the sewer...forgetting all that, based on what Mr.
Daniel has said, which I do agree, I would like to
know...fine points, get some finer points on actual costs.
How much more work has to be done to get a more accurate
estimate and do you have the money ..... he made a comment
that there was some monies available and I assume they
are...how much money are we going to spend to find out
additional information. For example, you haven't done, I'm
sure any test borings, soil borings, have you? And there-
fore, you don't know whether you might have to do any
undercutting at all on any of this property for roads or for
buildings or anything of this nature. Is that an accurate..
Mr. Fulghum: Mr. Chairman, at the present time, we have, of
course, boundary survey crews, the wetlands specialists are
doing delineations, .......
Mr. Currin: .... they are? You have, in fact, under contract
with them and they are beginning to do that?
Mr. Fulghum: The engineers are in the field now doing the
topographical surveys. We have an RFP out for geotechnical
services for the core borings themselves and, of course, as
we have looked through the planning process all along toward
developing the site plans and going through the approval
process during these summer months, to answer your question,
what we have calculated, based on the design costs that
would be committed up through final site plan submission or
final site plan approval,'the total engineering costs after
that point would be in the neighborhood of $160,000 to
$170,000 .....
Mr. Currin: And after you .....
Mr. Fulghum: ...... that's to make all those final determina-
tions and have bid documents ready for site work.
Mr. Currin: .... which, in fact, would either document your
figures or say we need more money. Is that a fair assump-
tion at that point?
Mr. Fulghum: Yes, well the further we go along in the process,
of course, the more accurate we can be.
Mr. Currin: Right. But having spent that amount of money at
that point in time you would be able to say these figures
are...pretty accurate.
Mr. Fulghum: Yes, sir.
Mr. Currin: There are a couple of things that I would like to
say in regard to the Liaison Committee that Maury and I do
serve on. Certainly, as far as I am concerned, as far as he
is concerned, we both know that it is not our responsibility
54
and we never went over there with the idea that we were
going to get into site acquisition and into...get into the
development costs. That is a School Board function and I
certainly don't feel comfortable with that at all. I think
under the Charter now that we do have to accept property but
I am not sure when we accept it. I think they have already
bought it and then we...they bring it to us and we do have
to accept it. Is that correct or is that getting into
something that ..... ?
Mr. Micas: The details may have not been worked out but
you...they make the decision and you must accept it if it is
within .....
Mr. Currin: Right. Okay. So this would be in something or
this is something that is brand new. I hope it never
happens again because ....
Mr. Applegate: But we have to approve the contract.
Mr. Currin: ...... because I don't particularly think this is
where we should be. Again, after having these meetings as
Maury said, we went over with the idea of trying to work
with because..myself, I had heard many, many comments from
citizens all over Chesterfield County, that they certainly
hoped that the two Boards would be able to work in harmony
much more than they had in the past. This was the idea of
the committee and I think we have accomplished that. At
this point, I would have to say that I also agree that I
do not want to spend a lot of money on .... on a site and on
development costs that is absolutely prohibitive as far as
the taxpayers are concerned. It's not in my area; I was
very conscious of Maury's problem. I told him that it is
your area; I will, in fact, work with you toward a goal
because I knew that the people had voted and that they
wanted a school and they didn't particularly want four pods
as had been talked about. So I told Mr. Sullivan you work
with the School Board and the attorneys and I will work with
you to try to get you...work with the other Board members to
try to appropriate the $2,000,000 that the School Board is
saying that they need and that's where I am. The $2,000,000
I can along with the appropriation of it based on the fact
that these figures are, in fact, are a heck of lot more
certain and the School Board can tell us instead of $670,000
that they come back for roads and tell us it's $2,000,000
then I don't think that the $2,000,000 should be appropriat-
ed. I think that these figures should be pretty .... pretty
close and if they aren't, then I would have a problem with
that. Now, I don't know that we can appropriate $2,000,000
and lock it in, and I am asking the County Attorney, can
you...can we vote to appropriate $2,000,000 based on certain
things happening and if it doesn't happen, then the
$2,000,000 is not used to acquire this site?
55
Mr. Micas: No, no .... to the School Board. You make the
appropriation to the School Board. That's it. But...maybe
I ought...need to clarify an earlier statement I just made
to you. For this .... you must approve this acquisition
because there is a park on it; I thought you were talking
generically about school sites.
Mr. Currin:
I wasn't generically. I'm sorry that I ......
Mr. Micas: But on this school site you must approve this
because the park is a County .....
Mr. Currin: ..... because the Park is a County .... right, okay.
I meant schools though. Okay. So, if we appropriate the
$2,000,000 for this site regardless of what we say about
cost, if the cost runs over, they don't necessarily have to
come back, they can go ahead and buy it and do as they see
fit ....
Mr. Micas: That is correct.
moral obligation.
It's only...it would only be a
Mr. Applegate: Mr. Chairman? ......
Mr. Currin: Yes?
Mr. Applegate: .... I noticed in the back, Mr. Sowers is back
there and he's just observing this public hearing this
morning but I...if you would permit, I would like for him to
come up. I would like to ask him a couple of
Buddy, I don't want to put you on the spot but ~'~'~
very patient, I guess, in trying to work with the County and
they.have held you up. One of the points that has been
allUded to through these discussions has dealt with Chesa-
peake Bay Preservation Act, EPA, wetlands, etc. I think, in
my conversations with you, you alluded to the fact that you
hadn't been able to get your site plan approval because of
the negotiations back and forth with the schools. Is that
right?
Mr. Sowers: That's correct.
Mr. Applegate: The thing .... you know, we're talking about
Chesterfield County saying we're going ahead and get the
school site approved prior to September 20th. I mean,
that's what I have been hearing...we can do that. I don't
know how much longer it's going to take Mr. Fulghum and that
team to get their work done but if Mr. Sowers, if something
were to go wrong, no pun intended, if something turned sour,
we would have a developer who has worked very patiently with
this County on a residential neighborhood without site plan
approval who may, in fact, get caught by that Chesapeake Bay
Preservation Act .... I would like to ensure that that doesn't
happen somehow.
56
Mr. Sowers: Mr. Applegate, let me point out, perhaps I acted
too hastily. We were held up in the fall at tentative
renewal of our subdivision. We were...we were required at
that time to reserve approximately half of our property for
schools and parks .... we frankly felt like that was a take.
We were held up for some 90 days. In the spring of this
year we were released and had begun our design when the
County came back in with their interest in purchasing the
site ......
Mr. Applegate: My only concern is that if something, through the
fine-tuning, went wrong I wouldn't want...I would feel an
obligation that your...whatever engineering work that needed
to be approved, if that's what you wanted to do .... we're
holding up not only you ..... people say we're setting a
double standard...this is Chesterfield County trying to work
something and we've got a number of zoning cases that are
contingent on some Chesapeake Bay Preservation or wetlands
density, Upper Swift Creek, I can on and on and on. So we
are establishing a double standard and I don't .... I would
hate to see this process go on any further and then at the
last hour something go sour and there you are with a
problem .....
Mr. Sowers: It's costing us a great deal of money just to wait
for this decision to be made .....
Mr. Applegate: .... yes, sir.
to be my second question.
his group any longer?
I understand that. That was going
Can you bear with Mr. Fulghum and
Mr. SowerS:
How long?
Mr. Applegate: I don't know.
man.
That's a concern I had Mr. Chair-
Mr. Sowers:
...may be interested in buying the finished lots?
Mr. Currin: I...let me...let me...Buddy, I agree that, you
know, no one should be taking your money, I mean, your land
and using it and testing it unless they want to pay you some
money to use...to do that. I agree wholeheartedly but I am
not in the negotiation of it. One question that I think
maybe .... I understand that the Planning Commission has, in
fact, started to hear those cases that you're referring to.
Is that the case?
Mr. Ramsey: My understanding is that they'll be hearing them
in July or August?
Mr. Currin: I agree with the double standards but I do under-
stand that they have started .....
57
Mr. Applegate: They are requiring, I think, they are hearing them
with the understanding that the developer comply with
whatever is established as the Chesapeake Bay Preservation
Act ....
Mr. Currin:
..... and not as to what ......
Mr. Applegate: ...but they're not taking them on the Upper Swift
Creek Land Use and Transportation Plan. That's my under-
standing.
Mr. Currin: Okay.
Mr. Applegate: I am just concerned he's been held up and held up
and held up and I didn't want him in a position where he
gets caught.
Mr. Currin:
I agree with that.
Mr. Ramsey: Mr. Chairman, I would also point out that, of
course this is awkward being .... here there is negotiation
going on right now with the property owner. But all .... I
think all of the contingencies that have been mentioned here
today are considered in that purchase contract that is being
negotiated with the landowner.
Mr. Sullivan: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I think all of us,
save perhaps Colonel Mayes, are of a mind to appropriate the
money. The question is how might we do that with all the
necessary controls .... and my jumping up and down here has to
do with .... I would like to put out a couple of thoughts.
Not that we don't have the full faith in the School Board
but I think that questions have been raised here today and
we have a responsibility to the folks to respond to those
questions. It would seem to me that there are a couple of
opportunities or ways that we might do that. One of the
ways that is suggested, not suggested but I would like to
get some comment on, I guess, would be that we appropriate
the money to the County...to the County Administrator and in
that way, we then, rather than giving it to the School
Board, we appropriate the same money to the County
Administrator for his purposes in working with the schools
and that way we would have, if you will, direct control to
the way the money is spent and when it is spent. Another
way, and I am not sure what problems this would cause for
the School Board, another way is to say this Board has
concluded, if in fact it does, but this Board has concluded
that we want to, or we are willing to, appropriate the
$2,000,000 but not actually make that appropriation until we
have all the .... more, more, .... a better handle, if you will,
on the numbers that Mr. Fulghum has presented to us. And it
would seem to me that either of those two methods would
work. I would like to get an idea from the members of this
Board as to how you might prefer to go.
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Mr. Daniel: Mr. Chairman, could I .......
Mr. Mayes: Mr. Chairman, could I respond to the fact that you
said that I wasn't in favor of appropriating the money?
Mr. Currin: Yes, sir.
Mr. Mayes: You see, Mr. Sullivan made the statement that the
School Board's authority was to select the site and we had
nothing to do with that. My response to that is the Board
members have a responsibility to the taxpayer for the
distribution of those funds for whatever. That responsi-
bility the School Board...the..this Board of Supervisors
has. The School Board is not elected, does not report to
the staff..to the taxpayers. We do and it is our responsi-
bility to protect their taxes.
Mr. Daniel: Mr. Chairman, Maury, may I offer just a small
consideration ...... that it flow .... maybe that we...don't use
the word appropriate but we budget $2,000,000 from the
proposed, from the Project Reserve for Future Capital
Budgets...that we budget it. If you appropriate it, then it
will become a discussion of whose appropriation .... you know,
if monies are spent, whose appropriations is it coming out
of - theirs or his. The, I think, the better part of
consistency would be that we vote or make a motion to budget
$2,000,000 from the Capital Reserve; there would still be no
appropriation until all the work is done and then when the
work is completed, then it is just a simple vote of
appropriating the money that was already budgeted. Could
you .... could that meet your needs?
Mr. Sullivan: Mr. Ramsey?
Mr. Ramsey: Let me raise one question. Would...since there be
no appropriation and we may be back six months from now, I
think it would be ...........
Mr. Daniel: I would rather for you to come back 6 months from
now than now ....
Mr. Ramsey: It would require
appropriate the money ......
another public hearing to
Mr. Daniel: .... no, well, you know, I don't ......... there's
no .......
Mr. Micas: You could close today's public hearing and then
defer but you would have to defer to a date certain, defer
the decision; you could defer it until July 25th or August
24th or whatever and make your appropriation decision then
but at some point you would have to appropriate ....
59
Mr. Currin: Then we have 2 motions; one to budget and one to
defer the decision ......
Mr. Daniel: You can do it all in one motion and cover it.
Mr. Ramsey: You can cover it in one.
Fir. Micas: No, you can do it all in one motion. Would be to
close the public hearing and, if you will, budget the
$2,000,000 and then defer the consideration of the
appropriation until a date in the future. You can do that
all in one motion.
Mr. Mayes:
You need five votes to close the public hearing?
Mr. Micas:
No sir, just three.
Mr. Daniel:
...three.
Mr. Sullivan: Mr. Chairman, might I ask Dr. Davis if he can live
with that. That's probably an unfair question for you,
Gene, but I have to start somewhere so .....
Dr. Davis: As I understand it, Mr. Sullivan, the discussion
going on to budget the money for the $2,000,000; not
appropriate at the present time; we're charged with getting
all of the factual information on the land analysis so you
can go through the process and then at a date certain,
whatever that date is, if that meets your needs, you would
appropriate the 2 million; we can live with that because
essentially I think that is what we are about at the present
time.
Mr. Currin: Okay.
Mr. Sullivan: What might be the date certain?
Dr. Davis: Well, the latest date obviously would be September
20th but...I don't know, we would have to look at our
schedule. Tom, do you know what the date certain is?
Mr. Sullivan: Well, .......
Dr. Davis:
We have to go through the process .....
Mr. Ramsey: I'd say September 12th .....
Mr. Sullivan: September 12th ..... these things all run in con-
currence.
Dr. Davis:
Yes, that's right.
Mr. Sullivan: We couldn't do it any later than September 12th.
60
Dr. Davis:
That's correct, yes sir.
Mr. Sullivan: Why don't we stick with that?
Mr. Ramsey: September 12th is a scheduled Board meeting.
Dr. Davis: That's fine with me .... I don't know what...I don't
have a calendar in front of me.
Mr. Fulghum: Either that or our last August meeting ......
Mr. Sullivan: Do we move for August and see what happens?
would you prefer?
Which
Dr. Davis:
September 12th.
Mr. Currin: Let me throw out one thing before you make a
motion. At some point in time, as Tom said while he's doing
his work, at certain times you are going to know that this
ground is not worth a tinker's and we would like to be
notified of that.
Dr. Davis:
That's correct.
Mr. Currin: Okay, so that it might be that half way through
this process you are going to say hey, we need to give up.
Dr. Davis: My .... I guess my assumption was that if that,
based on the conversation, that if that happened we would
come to you and say .....
Mr. Currin: That's right.
Mr. Daniel: ..... then you don't make the appropriation.
Mr. currin: Right, I understand that, I just want ......
Dr. Davis: .... last night we received similar directions from
the School Board .... they told us that, at any point in time,
if we were unable to achieve the goal, that we were to let
them know and to let you know and to come forward and say
stop the process.
Mr. Currin: And one other question. I see Buddy raising..is
raising his hand and I don't know what negotiations you have
had with that gentleman so I don't know how all this fits
into his...into his mold. But I ..... again, I think that the
fact that you are going to report to Mr. Ramsey and his
staff exactly what the report or the tests show, that would
in fact, at some point in time, might say stop we're not
going...but I don't know whether we ..... we're not in any
negotiation with him so, how do you address that?
61
Dr. Davis: I think we leave it to the attorneys at this point
because we have been going down the same path on this. I
know most of the talk is about schools but it's the park and
it's a combined effort so we have been walking down the same
path all the way through.
Mr. Currin: If in fact they do start negotiation and if we
budget and do all this and Mr. Sowers says hey there is no
deal, we got not deal. Okay.
Dr. Davis:
Yes, that's right. That's not up to me.
Mr. Ramsey: Just another point of clarification. We would see
bringing the purchase contract for the property which is
going to handle all the same contingencies we've talked
about in the appropriation in it hopefully back to the Board
at the next meeting.
Mr. Daniel: Can you do that?
Mr. Applegate: Then you don't need any action today then.
Mr. Daniel: How can you bring us a purchase contract when we
have sit here and heard four hours of arguments of every-
thing under the sun which may or may not go wrong, go wrong,
go wrong?
Mr. Ramsey: Because the purchase contract has all the same
contingencies that you've heard that if it's not suitable
for wetlands, if it's not suitable for the Chesapeake Bay,
then it's no purchase.
Mr. Daniel: Well, alright ..... if you're sure.
Mr. Applegate: Well, then there is no sense to have a motion
today to appropriate; you just do it all at the same time.
Mr. Daniel: Yeah, do it all at the same time then. I mean,
then .... you know .....
Mr. Sullivan: Mr. Chairman, we've .... it .... I would grant you
that there may be no reason but there sure is no reason not
to either and I think these folks have been dOwn and I think
the questions have been raised and I think we need to do
something. And therefore, I should like to move that .... I
should like to move that...that we budget, if that is the
right term, this $2,000,000, a maximum of $2,000,000; and
that we will agree to appropriate that at such time as the
numbers have been confirmed to us; and that we have a
purchase agreement which outlines the caveats that we have
spoken about at great length here today.
Mr. Daniel: I can support that motion; budget with appropria-
tion subject to.
62
Mr. Micas: Close the public hearing and the appropriation
decision will be deferred until September 12th.
Mr. Sullivan: That is correct.
Mr. Currin: That is .... a part of .... okay, plus the budget of
the $2,000,000 - no more than $2,000,000?
Mr. Daniel: I'll second it.
Mr. Mayes:
In the meantime, what happens?
Mr. Currin:
They continue the .....
Nr. Mayes: They continue to spend the money on this land for
the tests and everything that the evidence has shown here
that it's not going to work?
Mr. Currin: No, I don't think the evidence has shown that it's
not going to work.
Mr. Daniel: I don't think so either.
questioned but not shown.
I think it's been
Mr. Currin: Right. That's why we .... that's why we want to
spend an extra .....
Mr. Daniel: You got to do that no matter what site you buy.
Mr. NaMes: Are we going to have approvals from the
agencies...the EPA and the Army Engineers and all that when
it comes back?
Mr. Currin: If he doesn't have the approval, he won't be able
to use the site. He's got to get that.
Mr. Daniel:
problem.
He'll have early identification that he has a
Mr. NaMes: And when you appropriate ..... when you allocate
the money to the County Administrator, can the County
Administrator go ahead and write a check for this money
without coming back to this Board?
Mr. Daniel: No, no, no. He can only ....
Mr. RamseM:
You're not appropriating this money .....
Mr. Daniel:
..... he can't budget that for something...
Mr. Mayes:
I didn't say appropriate; I said allocate.
Mr. Ramsey:
I cannot spend money unless you appropriate it.
63
Mr. Applegate: What are you going to have in that now?
going to be the contingencies?
What are
Mr. Micas: Well, all these .... the contract as it is antici-
pated now will include all the contingencies that were
talked about at today's public hearing. And if any of those
break bad, then neither the County nor the School Board is
obligated to buy the property.
Mr. Daniel: The road costs jumps a hundred, a million
dollars...
Mr. Mayes: Gentlemen, why can't we face the issues. Either
we favor, we are going to support, we are going to allocate
the money or to support to buy this site or we're not. Now,
we ought to accept that. And we ought to have the backbone
enough to do one or the other.
Mr. Applegate: This has nothing to do with cost overruns accord-
ing to Mr. Micas.
Mr. Mayes:
But we have something to do with cost overrun .....
Mr. Applegate: No, I am not talking .... I'm saying if the road, if
the costs for road comes in over what's budgeted, it's not a
part .... it's not a contingency in that contract.
Mr. Daniel: No.
Mr. $~llivan: Not on the contract.
Mr. Micas: But you're not .... you can determine that issue
before you choose to issue to purchase .... to exercise or not
exercise the purchase.
Mr. Daniel: I hope you have written it in the contract. You
have heard all of it and at the next meeting we are going to
discuss the contract. That's the time to argue over whether
or not we have protected ourselves from the contingencies.
I think the process that we have heard today is certainly
expressed the will of financial conservatism, shall I say,
and that we want to be assured that site that is purchased
is in the interest of all the County for the long haul.
And, you know, if this one works out fine, the public knows
the votes are there to make it happen. If it doesn't work
out that the concerns of the hidden costs and others bloom
up between now and that time of appropriation, there's
probably a good probability that the appropriation won't be
made...that we go back to square one. But I think the
consensus ....
Mr. Sullivan: Let's call the question.
64
Mr. Currin: I have a motion on the floor and a second so all
in favor signify by saying aye.
Ayes: Mr. Currin, Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Daniel.
Mr.'Currin: Opposed?
Nays: Mr. Applegate.
Mr. Currin:
Mr. Mayes:
Mr. Currin:
Okay.
I am going to abstain.
We have three ayes; one abstention; and one no.
Conclusion of discussion on this item.
65