Clarke County School Board cost measure directs traffic through neighborhood
This is a disturbing development from the ongoing battle between the Town of Berryville and the Clarke County school board.
The Clarke County School Board has decided on a location for the primary entrance to the new high school.
But only if the price is right.
The latest plan — another tentative one — situates the entrance on a future extension of Mosby Boulevard, with a gated emergency entrance on either Tom Whitacre Circle or Main Street.
Other potential sites for the entrance were considered too costly because of the need to move utility poles or construct a traffic circle.
The board members came to a consensus after extensive debate during a special session in the Clarke County Circuit Courthouse Friday.
They then voted for a proposal asking the architectural firm Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates to draw up a sketch plan for the entrance and investigate whether the change would fit in the board’s budget.
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on Jan 31 2009. Filed under Berryville News, Winchester News.
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In a disastrous turn of events, the Clarke County School board has adopted a tentative plan to put the entrance to the new Clarke County High School on a neighborhood street instead of the Main Street entrance. This decision will drastically impact an entire community. The town and school board have battled over road improvements since the new site was selected and the school board has offered this as a “compromise.” In the article the school board is quoted as a saying that other entrance options were “too costly”. So it seems we have fallen to the point of, do what’s cheap, not what’s right.
Plus it seems a little disingenuous to flippantly remark that “any decision regarding the school will likely upset someone.” There is no one complaining that the entrance is on Main Street. It’s a simple ploy to try to diffuse resistance to their seriously flawed approach.
This is a failure on the part of the school board. They are being lead around by the town of Berryville, who is strong-arming them with their “The Berryville Area Plan” which they hold up like it’s some sort of Gospel. If there was no extension of Mosby there would be no question as to where the entrance would be. The reality is the area plan was fatally flawed from it’s inception, and the implosion of downtown businesses in Berryville stands as an all too painful reminder of it’s failure.
Attempting to bypass traffic around downtown is a historic failure. Middleburg is one of the only historic downtown communities to thrive in this area and it is a direct result of the refusal to allow VDOT to bypass the town.
My advice to Berryville is, stay with the plan, you may be able to shield yourselves from this failed vision in your new town office building while the rest of the community wastes away on your watch.