(The Center Square) — The Caddo Parish School Board met this week for a work session to approve the agenda items for next week’s meeting.
While giving consent to tallow the agenda items at the meeting on Nov. 19, one proposal sparked some concerns at Tuesday’s meeting.
The agenda item moves to approve the purchase and sale agreement for the board to purchase the property located at 2020 Midway Avenue. This land is attached to the school board office.
District 10 member Katie McLain questioned why they were considering purchasing property and renovating it when they already have a declining student population.
Staff members said the property would be the future hub for the transportation department and would serve many purposes.
The first reason would be to allow the department to move off sight so to free up space for other departments at the office. New Caddo Superintendent Keith Burton said there are covered structures that transportation workers can use to avoid inclement weather like rain or heat.
“From a safety standpoint, we think this is a good investment, Burton said. “As well as being able to repurpose the existing transportation department eventually possibly moving other departments back to us rather than having them at isolated at other locations.”
Another reason to purchase the property is so they can reroute traffic from buses at the current department office. Right now, there’s a higher chance of a accident. so the transportation department wants to designate entrance and exit point for buses and direct it all through that property.
Ultimately, this is a multi-phase, multi-year project. It wouldn’t happen overnight; they would phase in projects as they can from the capital projects budget.
This agenda item brought up other issues. District 9 member Barry Rachal said it’s a great idea, but worried about committing to a project like this without knowing the monetary value.
Engineers attached the project said a full estimate would be difficult because they can’t know exactly how much something will cost five years from now.
Right now, demolition on some old buildings and pavement is first priority, so this year expenditures are expected to be low.
District 4 member Don Little also wanted to ensure they do an environmental impact study to avoid purchasing a location with toxic pollution or anything of that nature.
In the end, all agenda items were given consent to be on the Nov. 19 agenda.
