RALEIGH -- A divided Wake County school board voted 5-4 today to scrap the proposed Forest Ridge High School in northeast Raleigh even though staff warned that switching to a new site in Rolesville could cost $15.4 million.
Members of the new school board majority questioned the dollar estimate while saying that they have to think about more than cost when the site will have such a negative impact on residents. Members also said they needed to carry out the pledge they had made during last falls election campaign to drop the site. Forest Ridge High would have been located on Forestville Road near U.S. 401.
The site was wrong," said school board member Chris Malone, whose district includes the Forest Ridge High site. "The traffic was wrong, The way it was handled was wrong. It was a boondoggle."
Members of the board minority acknowledged that the Forest Ridge site isnt ideal. But they said they have to weigh the cost of spending $15.4 million during this poor economy.
When we cant afford textbooks and teacher assistants and are making budget cuts, $15 million is an awful lot of money," said school board member Anne McLaurin.
The board also voted 5-3 to ask Knightdale, Raleigh, Rolesville, Wake Forest and Wake County to pay a total of $7 million to help offset the additional costs.
The board directed staff to look at two sites proposed by Rolesville Mayor Frank Eagles. One site is on U.S. 401 near Louisbury Road and the other site is near Rolesville and Quarry roads.
School administrators said that switching sites means they wont be able to open the school as planned in 2012. They said theyre now expecting a 2014 opening at one of the alternatives.
Administrators said much of the $15.4 million in extra costs would come from purchasing and locating additional classroom trailers to deal with overcrowding caused by delaying the school by two years.
Neighbors of Forest Ridge have mounted a campaign to block construction of the high school. They noted how traffic is already bad along the road and that building Forest Ridge just two miles from another high school on Forestville Road would make it even worse.
Neighbors also raised concerns about a potential slave cemetery on the property.
During last falls election campaign, the four new board members were highly critical of the Forest Ridge site. They repeatedly mentioned how the road, water and sewer costs for the site were nearly $6 million higher than budgeted.
One of the first acts of the new board after being sworn in Dec. 1 was to stop spending money on the project.
The vote to abandon Forest Ridge was approved by Malone, Ron Margiotta, Debra Goldman, John Tedesco and Deborah Prickett. It was opposed by McLaurin, Kevin Hill, Keith Sutton and Carolyn Morrison.
With Forest Ridge abandoned, the board approved a new plan to speed up other construction projects in the current school building program. In particular, the new Walnut Creek Elementary in Southeast Raleigh will be sped up two years to 2011.
Federal stimulus dollars will be used to speed up construction of the new Rolesville Middle School by a year to 2012.
