One Macon County school board member said recent county commissioner comments decrying their experience were “infuriating” as the board expressed a desire for more joint meetings as major capital projects get underway.
The discussion came during the June 27 Board of Education meeting when getting updates on the various capital projects the school system is pushing forward and the memorandums of understanding (MOUs) the school board wants the commissioners to sign.
Capital project updates
Macon County Schools Facilities Director Todd Gibbs gave the various updates to the board at its June 27 meeting. The Macon Middle School track work has not started due to GeoServices not having the manpower to start.
“Their official start date on this schedule is Monday, July 29,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs said despite GeoServices “burning some really fine weather days,” they’re confident about having the project done by the contract’s Oct. 15 deadline day.
On the Franklin High School project, Gibbs said work began to create a bus loop at the back of the current building. This will create another option for car pickup/dropoff when school starts, Gibbs said.
Other work along Panther Drive includes sanitary sewer hookups and rerouting, storm drain rerouting, plus discussions on fiber optic line rerouting. Gibbs said once football season is done, Duke Energy has it in their plans to re-route the power lines.
Mobile agriculture classrooms and storage buildings will be placed between the vocational and the cafeteria/media buildings. The current agriculture buildings near the football stadium are slated for removal.
Later in the meeting, board member Hilary Wilkes asked Gibbs about the Highlands soccer field updates. Gibbs said they got a second opinion on the underground boring results and confirmed there’s “swamp and river muck” below the field, which has clogged up the current drainage system.
Gibbs said there are three options. One is to replace the muck with gravel, which will be the costliest option. The second is coming up with another drain system, but that is a temporary fix. The third is a more-surface draining system and is the riskiest option.
Wilkes noted the construction work could narrow the field even further or make it unplayable. Gibbs said Vannoy’s first diagram had the fence on the field starting in September or October.
Board Chair Jim Breedlove said this likely rules out a turf field. Board member Diedre Breeden asked about potentially playing an all-away schedule. Breedlove said they’ll explore every option so there’s soccer at Highlands this year.
Memorandum of understanding update
On the memorandums of understanding, board attorney John Henning said he’s been on vacation and is still working on a full response to the county commissioners’ questions.
In May, the school board approved four MOUs to clarify responsibility for the four major capital projects – the Franklin High School replacement, the Highlands School renovations, the Macon Middle School track and the Nantahala wastewater project. On June 11, the agreements were presented to the county commissioners.
Two commissioners, Paul Higdon and John Shearl, vented frustrations about the projects and about letting the school board take what they felt was too much responsibility. Higdon and Shearl told Breeden, who spoke to defend the school board, to “rely on the experts” and criticized the construction knowledge of Macon County Schools, saying, “These people are teachers and principals.” Shearl said the commissioners should have design input and authority on the projects.
The commissioners did not vote on the MOUs, as county attorney Eric Ridenour said he found a typo in the documents.
During a discussion on re-approving contract services for Earth Environmental Services to fix wastewater treatment issues at Nantahala School and Iotla Valley Elementary, Breedlove thanked Breeden for handling the comments the commissioners made at the June 11 board meeting.
“The comments that were made, you handled that very well,” Breedlove said to Breeden.
School board members respond to commissioners
At the June 27 meeting, Henning said there’s been “misconstruction” about the MOUs and the experience level at the school system.
“With due respect to some comments that I’ve seen, there’s plenty of construction knowledge among all of us,” Henning said to the school board, referencing Higdon and Shearl’s criticisms of the school board. “Nothing in there was ever proposed to separate you from the county or assume more duties.”
Henning said in 85% of cases, the county allocates the project budget to the school system.
“You ultimately design your school buildings,” Henning said. “You’re essentially going to be the county’s agent to go out and construct it.”
Henning said if the school board wants to, they can reword the MOUs so the county has more direct control.
Breeden then asked Henning how the school board can spell out an MOU “so it doesn’t take two years to get things done,” expounding on her frustration with a lack of action. Breeden said it took roughly 18 months to get the MMS track to a point where construction could start.
“I went in circles with that, ‘go do this,’ OK, ‘go do that,’ ‘we don’t want that,’ OK,” Breeden said. “As respectfully as possible, I would like for it to be clarified on our end so we’re not wasting time going and doing something that we think we’re supposed to be doing.”
Henning said the Nantahala sewer project is in a gray area because they don’t know what the project will look like. Gibbs said when they approved a request for qualifications for a subterranean system, they got zero responses.
Breeden broached the idea of having commissioner and school board joint meetings monthly, to be “proactive instead of reactive.” Breedlove said he liked the idea.
Wilkes said as commissioner liaisons, she and Diedre brief the rest of their board on what happens in those liaison meetings and suggested sharing those minutes with the commissioners to make sure everyone is on board. At times commissioners have griped about “being left in the dark” on certain project updates.
Board member Stephanie Laseter said her belief is that two boards working together need to meet “in a professional, high-functioning relationship,” prepared with agendas presented ahead of time and ready to make decisions.
“Asking for a monthly meeting will not change anything if we are prepared and read up and ready to discuss something,” Laseter said.
Laseter said her beef is that the directions from the commissioners on certain projects kept on changing, saying “We have to stick with the motion that was voted on…and we need to stay with that.”
“I will say the comment made that this board may not be qualified was infuriating and I think everyone here and everyone on this board has amazing qualifications and really good expertise in their different field,” Laseter said. “Let’s just be bringing our A game. I want to have an MOU that says, ‘thou shall come with our A game.’”
Wilkes said maybe the liaisons should report to the commissioners every month while these major capital projects are ongoing. Wilkes did like the idea of a regular joint meeting to hear from everyone.
When asked about a monthly joint meeting, Commissioners Chair Gary Shields said that would be OK. Shields said he got a “flood” of emails “about the expertise of people” after the June 11 meeting. Shields said he wanted to have a recent meeting but said he couldn’t get everyone together.
“I would say there are two or three commissioners that understand what’s going on right now,” Shields said of the capital projects.
Wilkes said that illustrates why it would make sense to have a liaison presentation at the commissioners’ meeting.
Barry Breeden suggested for future meetings that the two boards face each other, instead of being seated at one long table like the May 28 joint meeting at the FHS Fine Arts Building. Barry Breeden, Diedre’s husband, will likely be a county commissioner after November’s election as he is running unopposed after defeating Higdon in the March Republican primary.
“I think if we were able to get together…this is the biggest project we’ve ever seen in Macon County up to this point. I think it’s important to meet face to face, eye to eye and go through this thing together and make sure that everyone is on the same page and we’re not getting bits and pieces from here,” Barry Breeden said.
Breedlove said his frustration is avoiding comments such as “this is the first time I’ve heard of this.”
“We can’t do that any longer, especially with what we’re talking about,” Breedlove said. “I personally am trying to find a way to have meetings, keep people on track…we know what’s going on, bluntly, but we want to make sure everybody knows so we don’t run into any more roadblocks.”
“My expectation is when I’m handed a piece of paper, I read it,” Laseter said. “I can’t come to meetings and say, ‘I don’t know.’”
Diedre Breeden suggested the monthly joint meetings be non-voting meetings. Breedlove said LS3P, Carroll Daniel and Vannoy need to be at all these meetings. Henning said with multi-million-dollar contracts, those organizations should be at those meetings.
Breedlove asked Lynch to contact Roland and coordinate a joint meeting within the next 30 days.
Shields tried to talk up the May 28 meeting as being the start, but Breedlove said the Fine Arts Venue was not conducive to discussion and the lighting made it hard to read the documents presented. At that meeting,
County Manager Derek Roland presented updated FHS and Highlands School costs and proposed summer work contracts for the commissioners to approve, which upset Higdon and Shearl and consumed most of the three-hour meeting.