Panel Will Try To Break Deadlock Over New High School
The Boundary Review Board deadlocked in its Monday night vote over extending public water to the proposed site of the Mead School District’s new high school.
But Mead school officials remain determined to build their new high school on Mount Spokane Park Drive - with or without public water.
The Boundary Review Board will again consider annexation of the 80-acre school site by Whitworth Water District at a meeting at 5 p.m. Monday in the conference room of the Spokane County Public Works Building, 1026 W. Broadway.
A fifth board member, who missed this week’s meeting, is expected to attend on Monday. If the board does not break the deadlock by June 3, the annexation will be automatically approved.
The board decides whether annexations of land are in the public interest. It already has spent five hours considering Whitworth Water District’s request to annex Mead’s school site to its service area.
The water district serves the land immediately west of the school site.
Boundary Review Board members Sally Reynolds and Shirley Maike opposed the annexation. They were concerned that the school would take valuable farmland out of production and that it would lead to housing developments sprawling across Peone Prairie.
“If the county commissioners have difficulty enforcing (the) urban impact boundary in siting a school, are we going to see them acting differently regarding other land use on the prairie?” Reynolds asked.
Board member Lawrence Stone, who, with Mary Benham, supported the annexation, said, “I can’t envision a high school that does not have a good water supply.”
Critics of the site complained that the district planned to use a pipe size larger than needed. But district leaders said the pipe was sized for fire protection.
“What you are appointed to do is grant public water or not,” school district attorney Tom Kingen told the board. “This district is prepared to develop the site with a well, not to spite this board or the people who oppose the site, but because 80 percent of the people in the Mead School District have identified this site as where they want to build that school.”
In its newsletter, school district officials wrote after the meeting that preparations for building the new high school continue on schedule. Final architectural drawings and plans have been completed. By June 3, Mead plans to put the project out for bid.
The district must have all plans for the school in place by June 30 if it is going to qualify for the $9 million in state matching funds needed to complete the $37 million project.