FCPS wants to use eminent domain for a school driveway. It’s another bad move | Opinion
Theresa Leito has lived on the corner lot of Fair Oaks Drive for a decade, and she’s spent a lot of money on the modern brick house and the carefully landscaped garden beside it.
Now, however, instead of birdsong all she hears is backhoes, which are industriously digging up on the other side of her fence — but still on her property line — for the driveway to a new school on Versailles Road.
They’re doing that because Leito refused to sell the side sliver of her property to Fayette County Public Schools. On Monday night, the school board announced they would be using eminent domain to take the land instead, along with four of her neighbors’ yards on Port Royal Drive, roughly .1759 of an acre.
Apparently, they need a wider driveway for school buses, although there is a broad swath of land on the other side of the backyards.
“It’s been crazy,” Leito said. “I’ve tried to get answers for two years. They have disregarded all of us.”
Now, she and some neighbors have their own answer: Legal action to stop the eminent domain proceedings by well-known development attorney Bruce Simpson, who plans to file a lawsuit against the school board on Wednesday.
On Monday night, school board chair Tyler Murphy read a statement that said the district had “engaged in good-faith negotiations with the property owner(s) and will continue to work within all legal requirements to ensure fair treatment as we seek to settle this without legal action.
“While eminent domain is a measure of last resort, it is sometimes necessary to meet the long-term needs of our students and community.”
Simpson has another perspective.
“I can tell you they have not been negotiating in good faith,” he said.
The lawyer did not share the district’s financial offers to neighbors.
Simpson contacted the district 10 months ago about the fact the work crews were trespassing on the neighbors’ properties. Nonetheless, late last week, they started digging on and over the property lines.
He requested a meeting between school board members and the neighbors. He was told they could only meet with an attorney.
Now, instead, they will meet in court.
“Why don’t you put the road on all the other property you have access to?” Simpson asked. “They have plenty of property to reroute this road without destroying the quality of life for people — it flies in the face of being a basic good neighbor.”
A big property for a big new school
In 2022, the school board bought 35 acres of land with a mansion and several other buildings on the corner of Mason Headley and Versailles roads from developer Dudley Webb. The price was $10.1 million.
The district tore down an historic mansion, a greenhouse, a tennis court, and a barn, along with at least 200 trees, Leito estimates. It became the site of the new Rise STEM Academy for Girls, with a capacity for 900 students. There are two entrance/exits, one on Versailles and one on Mason Headley Road.
Last September, Leito said, school officials said they wanted to buy some of the neighbors’ land because they needed more room for school buses. When Leito asked why not expand the road on the left side, which is open green space, they didn’t reply.
Her property line includes the grassy space at the driveway entrance.
“They just wouldn’t answer our questions,” she said.
Dudley Webb had gotten permission to build a fence on the backs of their properties, along the road he used as a driveway, but they had access to it as well.
“Dudley Webb was the best neighbor ever,” Leito said.
On Port Royal Drive, Kris Zander could see a Bobcat chewing up asphalt behind his house.
“That’s my property line right there,” he said. “They know this, but they’re doing it anyway.”
“If a private developer had done what the school board has done, the planning commission would have deep-sixed any application,” Simpson said. “But because the school board is exempt from zoning they just cavalierly destroyed an urban forest, destroyed a historic house and trespassed on private property.”
Another self-inflicted wound
And here’s where we come to the inexplicable part of the story: That the Fayette school district, currently being investigated by the state auditor, and still smarting from a shady attempt to pass a new payroll tax to solve a $16 million shortfall, would think this is a good idea.
Eminent domain is hardly ever used any more, except for road building. It’s a path of last resort because it’s considered to be the worst of heavy handed Big Government. Regular people hate it, and you know who dislikes it even more? The Republican majority of the Kentucky General Assembly, who didn’t exactly need another excuse to hate on Fayette County schools.
So, as I’ve said over and over again, why does the school district keep shooting itself in the foot? On Tuesday, district officials didn’t answer my questions. On Wednesday, they said they believed the eminent domain would be less expensive than moving infrastructure like storm drains, projected at a cost of $240,000.
Less than an acre along some small houses near Cardinal Valley might not seem like a big deal to the school board. But like all of us, these are people’s homes and backyards, however small.
They don’t want them carved up. Much less the constant noise and pollution.
Leito pointed to an array of bird feeders hanging from a tree in her backyard.
“I used to have 17 types of birds that would come here, but now they don’t show up because there’s no trees left,” she said. “This is where I used to sit and have my morning coffee, and now I can’t.”
I can’t see this going well for the district. Once again, they’ve chosen an expensive, public relations nightmare over their most important job of educating our children.
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 1:00 PM.
