The
Dunwoody City Council signed a preliminary agreement Oct. 5 with the DeKalb
County Board of Education for a land swap for the construction of a new Austin
Elementary School. As part of the swap, the school board will pay the city $3.6
million, according to the deal set to be voted on next month.
The
council did not take a vote at the Wednesday morning meeting but met in
executive session for about 20 minutes. When the council emerged from the
closed-door meeting, Mayor Denis Shortal announced the city signed the letter
of intent with the school district. The school board signed the same
letter intent on Monday, Oct. 3.
As
part of the proposed land swap deal, the county will pay the city $3.6 million
and give eventual control of the current Austin Elementary School property on
Roberts Drive to the city. In exchange, the city will give the Dunwoody Senior
Baseball fields in Dunwoody Park, just down the road from Austin Elementary
also on Roberts Drive, to the school district to be used as the site for a new
900-seat Austin Elementary School.
The
Dunwoody Park acreage going to the school board is slightly more than 10 acres
and the current Austin Elementary School property is just under 10 acres. The
city will construct two new baseball fields at Peachtree Charter Middle School
on about 8 acres of the school property to be used by the Dunwoody Senior
Baseball league; the city will also maintain the PCMS’s football field and
track area with the agreement the city will have access to the fields when not
in use by the school.
The
rough timeline for the entire process is for the new baseball fields to be
constructed first so DSB can transition to them. Construction on the new Austin
Elementary would then begin with plans to open in August 2018.
After
the county is finished building the new school, the property where the current
school is located is turned over to the city to turn into park land and the
community would provide input on what kind of park it would want, council
members said.
Shortal
stressed, however, that the signing of the letter of intent with the school
board was not final. There will be two community meetings at City Hall on Oct.
17 and Oct. 25 at 6 p.m. with a final vote slated to go to the council on Nov.
14. “We
have about six weeks to look at this, to vet this,” he said. “We are the folks
you elected and I’ve urged council to be open to public input.”
Dunwoody
Senior Baseball supporters and board members oppose the move of the fields to
PCMS and several spoke during
public comment at the meeting Wednesday morning. The league and city have a
private-public partnership for use of the fields on the city’s park property.
“It
would be like building on Fenway Park,” said DSB board member John Crawford.
“Our partnership has been amazing. We’re really disappointed that our partners
would consider evicting us in this plan.”
Drew
Evangelista said it shouldn’t be the city’s responsibility to help the county
school board’s problem with school overcrowding by allowing a new school to be
built on the baseball fields.
“They
are making DeKalb’s problems Dunwoody’s problems,” he said. “It’s unfair for
Dunwoody citizens and you all to be placed in that situation. I feel this is a
jewel to the city that you are giving away. Push back and make the school board
do something different.”
Councilmember
Doug Thompson said negotiations between the school board and the city have been
years in the making and he believes the one being considered now is good for
all involved. “We
know Dunwoody Senior Baseball has been tough on us,” he said. “I’m a youth
sports guy. I would not have done anything to hurt the program. We’re getting
$3.6 million from the [school board] and we can get some nice fields. “We ended
up with park land and money,” he added. “You just can’t beat that.”
Councilmember
Lynn Deutsch also praised the deal’s guarantee of more park land for the city.
She also said the city was going “above and beyond” in being transparent about
the real estate swap, noting that the city of Brookhaven recently entered into
a similar
park land swap with the school district with no public input. “We
are starting month-long process,” she said. “This is not a bad deal. And this
just the beginning of the process. We are open to input.”
Councilmember
Terry Nall expressed some displeasure with the deal, saying there would be no
issues had the county built the new school where the current one is located.
Nall said that state Sen. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody) had worked out a deal with
the prior school superintendent, Michael Thurmond, to do just that. But he also
said the overall deal was a good one. “Schools
make our community and our job is to protect our community. This is a net gain
for the city,” he said.
Councilmember
John Heneghan said the county approached the city about a land-swap deal and
noted a new school was needed. He said the city went to DSB and the Dunwoody
Nature Center, located in Dunwoody Park, to vet some plans to try to make a
“win-win situation.” “The
current site of Austin will become a city park someday. What does the city
want? What are the needs of that corner? There is a great amount of need for
this,” he said.
“We’ve
worked very hard to make this a workable situation for the entire community,”
he said.
Councilmember
Jim Riticher said in addition to new baseball fields and new park land, the
city also enters into a 25-year agreement with the school board to fix up and
share use of the PCMS football field and track area.
Thompson
said he understood that change and DSB moving to new baseball fields after some
40 years at Dunwoody Park is hard. “The
new fields will be better, but they will be different,” he said. “We’ve
bought ourselves a month. We’ll hear you out.”
Shortal
blasted the DeKalb County School District and said he would be “dancing in the
streets” when the city is able to take over the schools, adding the school
board is “totally inadequate.” “It
is unbelievable to me the school board cannot build decent facilities for our
schools,” he said.
The
new school is being funded with taxes raised when
voters approved a 2011 E-Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax.
Comments
State Law
gives more Georgia education dollars to schools that have 900 students. That’s
why DeKalb Schools are doing this swap. The cost is astronomical and the 900
student minimum is unnecessary and inconsistent with having “neighborhood
schools”. Social engineering costs are unsustainable. The key to having a good
school is to have good students, not new buildings every 20 years.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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