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BOE Votes Down Buying Milledge Building
PLUS, E-SGOOTERS, EARLY VOTING, FIREFLY TRAIL AND MORE LOCAL NEWS
By Blake Aued and John Huie news@flagpole.com
The Clarke County Board of Education
rejected Superintendent Demond Means’
plan to spend $11 million on a South
Milledge Avenue office building at a meet
ing last week where Clarke Middle School
students, teachers and parents lobbied the
board to reinstate renovations to the school
that Means wants to delay.
After looking at several other poten
tial sites—including the former Macy’s at
Georgia Square Mall, the former Hobby
Lobby off Atlanta Highway and the Georgia
Power building on Prince Avenue—Means
recommended 394 S.
Milledge Ave., a loca
tion near the corner of
Milledge and Baxter
adjacent to Clarke
Central High School.
Means wants adminis
trators out of the H.T.
Edwards building so
the career academy can
expand.
But a majority of
school board members
balked at the building’s
size and cost. It carries
a nearly $7 million
price tag, with another
$4 million in renova
tions required, mainly
to knock down interior
walls to create a space
large enough for board
meetings. And at
38,000 square feet, it’s
substantially smaller
than what Means had
said he was looking for, although he has
said it has enough offices and parking to
accommodate the central office staff.
The vote was 6-3, with Greg Davis,
Frances Berry, Patricia Yager, Kara
Dyckman, John Knox and Tawana Mattox
in favor of canceling the contract to pur
chase the property. Linda Davis, Charles
Worthy and LaKeisha Gantt wanted to
extend the contract another 30 days so an
appraisal could be done. Others, though,
had already made up their minds. “There is
nothing that could change my mind about
spending $6.7 million on... an old building
in a fancy part of town that we just don’t
need,” Yager said.
After the vote, Means told Flagpole he is
moving on to Plan B: building a new district
headquarters at the old Gaines School site.
A vote on that plan could come as early as
next month.
$9 million of the $11 million for South
Milledge would have come from ESPLOST
(the sales tax for school capital projects),
with the other $2 million from the sale of
CCSD’s Mitchell Bridge Road building in
2015. Means is also using the $37 million
left in ESPLOST to fund renovations at
the old West Broad School, new tracks and
fields at Cedar Shoals and Clarke Central
high schools, and additions to Gaines and
Chase Street elementary schools, where
students are using portable classrooms. The
rejiggering, though, means that Means is
delaying renovations to Clarke Middle, after
the county’s three other middle schools
were rebuilt. Ribbon cuttings for Hilsman
Middle and its new health clinic are sched
uled for Oct. 22.
Means said in a news release sent out
just prior to the board meeting that Clarke
Middle will be a top priority in ESPLOST
VI, which will go before voters in 2021,
and that he would rather wait and spend
$25 million or more to completely rebuild
Clarke Middle, rather than spend the $10
million budgeted in SPLOST V for ren
ovations that could be inadequate. The
on-call architect the board voted to hire last
week, Lawrenceville-based Lindsay Pope
Brayfield Clifford and
Associates, could start
a community engage
ment and planning
process as early as
December, he said.
But that was not
good enough for sev
eral Clarke Middle
students, teachers and
parents who spoke at
the board meeting,
describing a building
that leaks; has an old
HVAC that’s so loud
it must be turned off
to watch videos; has
mold, stained carpets
and ceilings; and is
infested with roaches.
(Linda Davis blamed
the bug problem on
the school’s garden,
goats and chickens.)
They questioned why
offices for administra
tors should be prioritized over a school’s
learning and teaching conditions. “Please
put the students first,” said seventh grader
Vivian Carabello.
Mattox said the board’s SPLOST com
mittee had a long discussion about Clarke
Middle at its most recent meeting. “Parents
and teachers, know you are being heard,”
she said.
In other CCSD news, Winterville Mayor
Dodd Ferrelle sent word to Flagpole that the
city council is expected to hold a no-confi
dence vote on Means at its Nov. 12 meeting.
The council voted unanimously to authorize
Ferrelle to draft a proclamation “expressing
the City of Winterville’s complete lack of
confidence in the current Superintendent
of the Clarke County School System and
recommending that the current Clarke
County Board of Education receive over
sight training.” The BOE held a retreat with
the Georgia School Board Association last
month and is working on scheduling dates
for additional training, Gantt said at the
meeting. [Blake Aued]
Bird Scooters Might Not Be Back
Having just extended a temporary ban
on “shareable dockless mobility devices”—
mainly scooters rented via phone apps—
Athens-Clarke County commissioners
seemed less than enthusiastic last week
about allowing them at all. “I’ve heard
from no one who wants these shareable
scooters to come back,” Commissioner
Russell Edwards observed at an Oct. 8 work
session.
Last year, Bird e-scooters appeared
all over downtown and at UGA. Based on
safety issues, including scooters blocking
or being illegally ridden on sidewalks, UGA
confiscated over 1,000 scooters from cam
pus—Bird eventually settled its fines and
took them back—and ACC asked Bird to
remove the rest, which it did. The ban does
not affect scooters owned by individuals.
Bringing the scooters back would be “a
very complex issue with a lot of moving
parts,” ACC assistant attorney Sherrie
Hines told commissioners. The scooter
companies, having no local office, leave
responsibility with riders and, by default,
county government for safety, enforcement
and liability, while collecting a per-minute
charge to ride. “There’s just a whole lot of
risk for the users,” Hines said; riders cannot
signal turns while riding, which requires
both hands, and must assume the vehicles
are safely maintained. Riding on sidewalks
is illegal, and riding on streets can be dan
gerous. UGA will not likely allow them on
campus, Hines said, unless state legislation
now being developed forces it to. If ACC
does allow them, she suggested hiring a
consultant to advise the local government
on setting fees to recover costs from the
scooter companies for constructing scooter
parking downtown, and for enforcement
and oversight costs.
And environmentally, “they’re not actu
ally replacing car rides,” Hines said. “They’re
replacing walking.”
Clarke Middle School, built in 1959, is showing its age.
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FLAGPOLE.COM | OCTOBER 16, 2019