YOUNGSTOWN City gives land for school, cuts tensions with board

The school board gets its two-story school, and the city is expecting the legal settlement it wants.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The simple donation of city park property to the board of education is the first step toward resolving some big issues.
City council turned over five acres of Schenley Park on Wednesday to the school board for $1.
First, the move means the school board can build the new West Elementary the way it planned. The board faced having to redesign the school from two to three stories if the city refused to grant the land.
Second, the donation signals that a settlement is in sight over a tax abatement lawsuit involving the city, school board and Corrections Corporation of America. The city faced up to $8 million in liabilities if it lost the case to the school board.
Cooperation lauded
Officials from both sides praised the cooperation.
Richard Atkinson, R-3rd, said council demonstrated that it's willing to work with the school board despite years of tension.
Clarence Boles, a school board member, called the move the first step toward repairing relations between the two. It is hoped the gesture is one of many to come between the city and the board, he said.
Council has hesitated for months to provide the land because of the lawsuit. At issue is a dispute over tax breaks the city gave CCA. A trial date has been pushed back once and is now set for Oct. 28.
Settlement talks have progressed enough, said Law Director John McNally IV, that council could be confident in releasing its main bargaining chip.
Council members decided that the settlement is far enough along that holding up the school project any longer wasn't worth the trouble it would cause, McNally said. "We're on our way to settling this," he said.
Land needed
The school board desperately needed the land. As the new West Elementary is designed now, the land is required to build a two-story school.
The board would have been forced to build a three-story school if the needed city land wasn't in hand by month's end, Boles said. More children would be injured on a second flight of stairs and evacuations would have been more difficult, he said.
"It had to happen," Boles said of the settlement.
In September, school officials said obtaining the land then was critical. Getting the land now puts the West Elementary project only about two weeks behind schedule, which isn't a big problem, Boles said.
Nonetheless, time was getting short. Realistically, the drop-dead date for settling on a school design was the end of October, he said.
Without a deal, relocating playground equipment and facilities off school property also would have cost the cash-strapped city about $150,000.