Mathews officials put emphasis on school

School officials would like a new high school built miles away from runways.
By ED RUNYAN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- The issue on the agenda was airport zoning -- something county officials say will improve safety and growth at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station.
But members of Mathews Board of Education who sat down with Trumbull County Planning Department officials and others Wednesday night were more interested in the safety of 300 people working at Mathews High School.
Throughout the meeting, schools Superintendent Lee Seiple and Mathews board President Roy J. Pratt III emphasized that the school building on Warren-Sharon Road is less than one mile from the end of a landing runway, departing runway and military assault runway at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, adjacent to the reserve station.
But Barb Ewing, a staff member of U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Niles, D-17th, asked the officials if they could separate their concerns about the school's safety from the airport zoning.
"We have no opposition to airport zoning providing a safe haven for airplanes having to take off or land," Seiple said.
Pratt, who is a pilot, said the board members would take back the information the planning department had provided and give a response to county commissioners within a month on whether they could support the zoning.
Property values
Among the documents the county provided were charts showing the housing values in areas that have enacted airport zoning such as Erie, Pa., and Mansfield. Knapp said the data show that property values have remained healthy in those areas.
The school board and Vienna, Bazetta and Fowler townships have written letters to the commissioners asking that the airport zoning be tabled because of their concerns about whether it would adversely affect property values in the affected areas.
Knapp said the reason for airport zoning is to provide better protection against encroachment around the air reserve station and protect people from the areas near the end of the runways where most airplane accidents occur.
County commissioners must make the final decision on whether to approve airport zoning. They have said they have not approved it yet because of the number of letters that have been written in opposition to it, Knapp said.
The airport zoning effort began primarily to benefit Project SOAR, which successfully kept the air base off the list of military bases that are being closed by the federal government as part of the Base Reduction and Closing Commission process, Knapp has said.
Pratt mentioned during the meeting that the school board will send a letter to the airport and the air reserve station asking whether flights could be directed as far away from the school as possible as long as the school is near the runways.
Related request
Additionally the letter asks that landings and departures on the airport runways and landings on the nearby military assault runway that result in planes' flying within one mile of the school be suspended during school hours.
The school board has tried for many years to get the state to approve funding to build a new school miles away from the airport. But until that happens, the letter says, the board would like this type of cooperation from the airport and air reserve station.
Seiple said he hoped the congressman's office and other elected officials will do what they can to get the funding for a new school. Ewing said a congressman's ability to influence state funding issues is somewhat low.
Presently the district is scheduled for 25 percent funding for a new school in 2012, Seiple said.