‘Next to useless.’ Neighbors protest school project, find limits of virtual public meetings.

Neighbors near the construction site of the new Tates Creek High School were unsatisfied with answers they received last week at a meeting held virtually due to the coronavirus and continue to press for the project to halt.

“I am disgusted by the way the Fayette County Public Schools are treating taxpayers and neighbors and supporters of TCHS,” said resident Nancy Jo Kemper, a former congressional candidate.

The Zoom meeting held March 19 “was next to useless,” Kemper told school board chairwoman Stephanie Spires. “We were not given sufficient time, nor was adequate explanation given that we were not going to be allowed to speak. I was unable to type fast enough to submit all the questions that I wanted to submit.”

Earlier this month as coronavirus cases increased, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced new guidance that state boards and commissions cancel any scheduled in-person meetings, and instead use video teleconference technology.

The new guidance, supported by attorney Jon Fleischaker, an expert on Open Records and Open Meetings laws, said that boards and commissions should provide the public with a link to access meetings remotely.

Meetings all over Kentucky are being moved to such remote and virtual arrangements. And that change is already putting the public at a disadvantage in some cases.

Michael Abate, who along with Fleischaker serves as General Counsel for the Kentucky Press Association, said he didn’t think there was any question that the virtual meeting is not as user friendly as the traditional in-person meeting.

“I think this an issue that’s going to keep coming up over and over,” Abate said. “I think it’s a very serious question agencies are going to have to thoughtfully address how they prepare for and allow time for meaningful public input on things that happens at public meetings.”

David Thompson, executive director of the Kentucky Press Association, said virtual meetings have been allowed in the state since 1992, but he can only recall one other time that the law had been used.

“I think we are kind of in a mode where there’s no experience with dealing with the virtual meetings, and for some public agencies it might take some getting used to,” said Thompson.

“You did not have a virtual meeting with us,” Kemper told Spires. “There was no dialogue. All of us support the new school, think all the features of it are wonderful, but what we are protesting is the site location in our back yards. Instead of addressing what you knew were our questions, you gave us information that was more like a presentation of how wonderful the new school will be. We did not feel heard, nor did we have an opportunity to respond to any of the presented material. “

“If we had known in advance that we were going to have to type in questions during the meeting, we would have had questions prepared. Instead, there was insufficient time to listen and to type questions. The meeting was a joke.”

Construction on the new Tates Creek High School building is set to begin this summer, Fayette County Public Schools district officials have said. Some preliminary work is happening now. Officials said the $88 million project is unique because the available land on the Tates Creek campus allows the district to construct a new building on the existing site.

“We were given a lecture with little opportunity to raise the concerns that we have regarding the building of the gymnasium and the water drainage matters,” Kemper said. “We (were) not met with. We were given a presentation, allowed to type in questions—if we understood how to do it and many of our neighbors did not know how to do that—as fast as we could, and then the meeting was adjourned. I expected better of the Fayette County Public Schools.”

Neighbors who live very close to the proposed school have asked for the brakes to be put on the project, said neighbor Sara Grant.

Spires said at Monday’s monthly school board meeting, which was also held virtually, that most neighbors are in favor of the new building.

Spires believes most of the neighbors’ questions and concerns have been addressed.

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Grant said financial experts now are predicting a possible 20 percent unemployment rate resulting from the COVID-19 crisis. She asked whether it is even financially responsible to proceed with an $88 million construction project at this time.

“I sincerely hope that our voices will be heard and respected in this process,” said Grant. “I hope that a new school can be built that provides a quality learning environment for the Tates Creek High School students, as well as one that is financially responsible, and is not detrimental to the neighbors.”

School District Chief Operating Officer Myron Thompson said officials were compiling the questions and comments into a single document to be shared later this week.

Sabrina Oaks, an architect with Tate Hill Jacobs, said at the virtual meeting that the building will allow kids to be able to complete in the global economy and foster project based learning.

There will be a health clinic for students and their families. The principal has also developed a life skills transition program that will serve district wide students with moderate and severe disabilities to help their transition from public schools to the community

Oaks said the new building is energy efficient and will save money on operating costs and protect tax dollars.

It is modeled after Lexington’s Frederick Douglass High school, the city’s newest high school, in terms of energy efficiency and it’s focus is on safety, officials said.

The new building is on the back portion on the site, which also includes the existing Tates Creek elementary and middle schools.

The new building is saving $2 million and two years on the construction schedule, and will save academic disruption that would have resulted if the high school had just been renovated, officials said.

Chris Howard, a landscape architect at Carman Landscape Architecture, said the central element of the new site design is a roundabout which separates bus and vehicular traffic for all three schools.

Howard said the new construction will have no adverse effect on storm water conditions in the area and in fact lessens the impact. Officials said there would be new lighting so that it wouldn’t bother the neighborhood.

The height of the new building is not going to be any higher than the existing building, officials said. Architects said they have tried to reduce the footprint of the new school so that it has less of a visible impact on the neighborhood.

Asked whether the virtual meetings had hurt the neighbors’ ability to express their misgivings, Urban County Council member Fred Brown said, “It hasn’t helped.”

Thompson gave neighbors his telephone number and said there would be other opportunities for neighbors to weigh in with concerns.

Grant said she loved the idea of a 21st Century state of the art school.

“However, I strongly oppose the location of the school, the destruction of the existing environment and landscape, the lack of consideration for us as neighbors, and the fact that our concerns are being dismissed,” she said.

This story was originally published March 24, 2020 at 2:43 PM.