Brooke school board approves lease
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WELLSBURG -- The Brooke County Board of Education agreed Monday to lease property owned by the school district to a natural gas company and chose the least extensive of options for an update to its future building plans.
Steve Mitchell, the district's director of maintenance, buildings and grounds, told the board the land north of Brooke Middle School near the railroad tracks above Cross Creek.
He said SWN Water Resources, an affiliate of Southwestern Energy, is exploring the possibility of building a booster pump on the site to convey water from the creek to natural gas well sites.
Mitchell said pending those plans, the school district will receive $1,000 per month for the next 12 months, after which the lease will be up for renegotiation.
He told the board the gas company's work isn't expected to disrupt or disturb the day to day operation of the middle school and nearby Brooke High School.
Mitchell noted the land was leased by the board to Chesapeake Energy several years ago.
The offer comes at a time when Brooke school officials have been working to raise the school district from the state's financial watch list. A $3.2 million shortfall in its five-year operating levy and declining enrollment have been blamed for its monetary woes.
Such financial concerns influenced the board's decision to make no plans for new buildings while updating its comprehensive educational facilities plan. Architects with OWPR Inc. had presented three options, including replacing the county's four primary schools with either one or two new buildings.
But the board opted to keep the current configuration of schools while pursuing improvements to all but the new middle school while considering selling the board's current office building on state Route 2 and moving into the former Wellsburg Middle School.
Superintendent Jeffrey Crook had recommended the move, noting the other options would cost millions the board doesn't have.
He added it's only been a few years since the school district was reconfigured from seven primary schools to three and two middle schools to one and maintaining the status quo would be "in the best interests of the students and community."
A previous board cited declining enrollment and the cost of maintaining buildings as the reasons for closing the schools, but the move wasn't well received by the public.
Board member Chris Byers said he was glad to see the board veer from decisions of the past and "trying to do something that's beyond our means."
Following the meeting, Crook said the board hasn't been approached about selling its current office building, which once was Wellsburg Primary East. But he said it makes sense to him to occupy unused space at the former middle school, which currently is home to the county's alternative learning center and provides storage space to the Handle on Science program and the district's maintenance department.
"We want to fully utilize that building," he said.
Crook confirmed there still are plans to sell the former Colliers Primary School and a trailer and property at 26th Street and Route 2 once used by the ALC, though no dates have been set for their auctions.
In related business, Mitchell advised the board an online auction of unused furniture, tools and other materials stored at the Colliers school netted about $21,000.
Conducted by The Auction Block of Wellsburg, the auction involved the sale of thousands of items, including more than a dozen work stations from the high school's former cosmetology department, hundreds of tables, chairs and garbage cans; and an assorted tools used by the maintenance or career technical education departments.