I-TEAM: Education leaders sell off historic school when no one is looking
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - The Richmond County Board of Education made a sketchy finish to close out 2023.
At the last meeting of the year, board added a last-minute item to the agenda – and took a vote after the public cleared out.
The item? The sale of a historic school that sits across from the Academy of Richmond County.
City leaders presented a redevelopment plan to the federal government late last month.
The plan for the location could bring in up to $40 million in federal grant money to the city, but it comes at a cost: a vote by the Board of Education to sell Lamar Elementary.
Twelve days before Christmas, parents went downtown to the Board of Education meeting.
Minutes after a performance by an ARC chorus group, parent and alumnus David Dunagan addressed the board.
“I am an overall er of ARC and the surrounding neighborhood,” he said.
“I am against the proposed sale of the Jospeh Lamar School,” he told the board.
Lamar opened on Baker Avenue in 1934, named for Supreme Court Justice Joseph Lamar.
Historic Augusta added the school to its endangered property list in 2013 when the school board considered the school surplus.
It’s across the street from ARC.
Dunagan noted that the site is proposed to be developed into a dense housing project with 236 units consisting of low-income housing, market-rate housing and Section 8 housing.
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It’s 2½ miles from the Allen Homes public housing project, and Dunagan noted that “the desire is to move half of the Allen Homes residents over to this site.”
County leaders met with the residents in early November before submitting a redevelopment plan to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in order to secure grant money.
“Unfortunately, with public housing, it brings some of the crime they have to deal with,” Dunagan said. “It’s not the good residents that live there but the criminals that prey upon these people. I think if this happens, that element will come to Baker Avenue and spill over into our community and spill over onto our campus.”
It’s a campus with no room left to grow.
information for Richmond County Board of Education : https://www.rcboe.org/Page/8456
“The only place we have to go is across the street,” Dunagan said.
The campus needs its ROTC, could use tennis courts and needs more parking, he said, “but if that parcel is sold, we can’t put them anywhere.”
Board politely thanked him before wrapping up the meeting.
Board President Charlie Walker told the public the board was going into executive session and said: “Y’all are free to go.”
Four minutes later, the mic picked up voices:
“We don’t need a roll call do we?”
“Do we need a roll call?”
“Ms. Patsy coming and Charlie Hannah?”
“I think Charlie may have left.”
Then the camera turned on to resume streaming video.
Walker: “We have a quorum. We are now back from executive session, and I guess we are going to readjourn, or we never adjourned, so we are just back from executive session. Can I get someone to make a motion? Go ahead.”
Jimmy Atkins: “Mr. Walker, I want to make a motion that you be allowed to sign this affidavit saying no action was taken in executive session.”
And with the public gone ...
Atkins: “Mr. Walker, I would like to make a second motion that the RCBOE sell the property formerly known as Lamar Elementary School, which is located at 970 Baker Ave., as discussed in executive session, to 970 Baker Ave. LLC for a lump sum price of $1,365,000.”
Only one board member voted no.
Venus Cain: “Can you put me down for a ‘no’ for selling the property? I had to think about it, so I made up my mind now.”
Walker: “That’s fine. It doesn’t change the outcome.”
Only time will tell how it changes the community.
The board approved the sale to the LLC that was created in September – just before city leaders sent the redevelopment plan to HUD.
Trotter Jones is the name listed on the LLC.
He is a local real estate attorney.
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