THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, February 21, 1996 TAG: 9602200082
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
Schools and water top the agenda for the County Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday.
Public Schools Superintendent Jane York is to present the School Board's proposed, five-year capital improvements budget to the supervisors, with a new elementary school in Windsor at the top of the list.
And the board has scheduled a public hearing at 7 p.m. regarding a proposal by Virginia Beach designed to save the city about $30 million on its water pipeline project - but a plan that some local residents fear will hurt their property.
The proposed school, estimated to cost nearly $10 million, is necessary because of the age of the existing Windsor Elementary and because of an anticipated residential growth spurt in the Windsor end of the county, school officials say.
Before integration, the elementary school was Georgia Tyler High School. Over the years, the building has been renovated several times; in the 1970s, it suffered extensive fire damage.
``I have a child there this year, in the third grade, and she's in a mobile unit,'' County Board Chairman Phillip Bradshaw said. ``I happened to go there one day when she was in class in the old shop. It's divided into multiple classrooms. The entire building is in bad shape.''
What the supervisors will have to decide is whether the county can afford another new school without raising taxes - and if they must raise taxes, by how much, Bradshaw said.
``We're most definitely on the right track in planning for schools,'' Bradshaw said. ``We've just got to find out if the citizens are supportive.''
Virginia Beach proposes to dump water from the Lake Gaston pipeline directly into Ennis Pond, a tributary of Suffolk's Lake Prince.
Originally, the pipeline, which terminates in Isle of Wight near Windsor, would have followed a path under U.S. Route 460 into Suffolk's Lake Prince, a water reservoir. The plan called for installing a pumping station and additional line on the path to the lake.
Late last year, project engineers proposed eliminating both the pump and the additional pipe. Instead, water would be dumped directly into Ennis Pond, a tributary of the lake, for a project saving of about $30 million.
But local residents fear the change could cause flooding problems, especially if the city of Norfolk, which already dumps water from the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers into the pond, happens to be dumping at the same time as Virginia Beach.
Meanwhile, since the proposal left the county Planning Commission and was passed on to the supervisors, Virginia Beach representatives have been meeting with residents near the pond to help allay their fears, Bradshaw said.
``I think anything we do will hinge on the concerns of the citizens,'' he said earlier this week. ``We all want to know about the wetlands impact, the possibility of mosquitoes and other insects breeding, what the proposal could do to property values out there. And can the culverts running under 460 handle the water?''
The supervisors, and the public, are likely to get answers to all of those questions, Bradshaw said. Engineers representing the pipeline project are expected to be on hand to answer questions. MEMO: The County Board meets at 6 p.m. Thursday in the Board of Supervisors
meeting room at the Isle of Wight Courthouse.
by CNB