Faced with overwhelming growth that's causing schools to be bursting at the seams, but with no money to build more facilities, Pea Ridge school officials are reassessing their options after voters rejected a millage increase.
The rejected proposal was to fund a new high school on school-owned land north of town.
"The first major piece to consider is the traffic issue," school superintendent Rick Neal said during a recent study session with school officials and the mayor.
Some of the opposition voiced on social media during the millage campaign, Neal said, included complaints about traffic congestion in front of the existing high school, which is at the intersection of Hayden Road (Arkansas Highway 265) and West Pickens Road (Arkansas Highway 94). With the new high school proposed for a 77-acre tract north of the city park on Hayden Road, some residents expressed concern about compounding the congestion at that intersection.
The land was purchased by the school as the most economical option because it had utilities already available. The property was purchased in 2014.
Last week, Neal hosted a study session. Attending were assistant superintendent Keith Martin, School Board members Jenny Wood, Jeff Neil, John Dye and Ryan Heckman, Mayor Jackie Crabtree, developers Jonathan Million and Rob Miller of RLP Development, Realtor Dave Montgomery and Police Chief Ryan Walker, police Capt. Chris Olson, police Lt. Eric Lyle and SRO supervisor police Sgt. John Langham.
"We have talked with AHTD (the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department)," Mayor Crabtree said. "We have authorization to put a turn lane in on 265 and Pickens.
"It will cost about $50,000," Crabtree said adding that utilities will have to be rerouted.
Another option considered for the congestion, Crabtree said, is to reroute the north end of Weston Road to the west on land now used for the high school parking lot and make a four-way intersection with Hayden and Pickens. Crabtree said that option would cost about $200,000.
"At whose expense?" asked Wood.
"We hope it would be a shared expense," Crabtree said.
"Why shared?" Wood asked the mayor.
"The city doesn't have that much money to put in," Crabtree said, adding that the intersection would probably be a four-way stop sign intersection because a traffic light is too costly.
"It would cost in the millions," the mayor said, explaining that when he looked at the possibility of a stop light downtown in 2004, it was projected to cost $1.5 million. He said the city could possibly "do a bond issue or something" to pay for the rerouting of the street but it would require approval from the City Council and would be a year to a year-and-a-half down the road.
"We don't want to make it ... if you're not putting the school out there," Crabtree said.
"But, even if the school doesn't go out there, somebody else will build there," Wood said, emphasizing that traffic congestion would be a problem at that intersection even without the new high school north of town.
Traffic counts show that 5,000 to 6,000 cars travel through that intersection a day, Miller said.
"It's a council issue, not a school issue," Neal stated. "That's where it got hairy, people were aggravated with the school and perceived it as the school's problem."
"We are really at a standstill on the school side," Wood said.
"AHTD is very picky," Crabtree said. "They've done traffic studies and their only recommendations are turn lanes.
"We can only do what the Highway Department allows us to do," the mayor said.
"The restraints are not the Highway Department," Neil said. "The restraint is the council. We can't get the council to move forward quickly enough to get a school building out there."
"It's truly an unknown," Neal said of solutions to the traffic problem.
"Short of a new election, it's a known. It's not going to happen," Neil said.
"It's a money issue," Crabtree said. "Our budget is really tight."
School officials agreed that the school must make decisions in the best interests of the school, the students and the community, and are faced with considering other options.
"This is not a new problem. This problem has been here for years. As a board, we have a 10-year plan," Wood said. "We don't know about growth all the time, but we plan for the growth. It's (the traffic) been a problem for at least 15 years. I've heard about that intersection the whole time. It does sound like a council problem because they don't see that as a priority."
"I think there is a real possibility we could move forward," Neil said, "but we'll be looking at that intersection the same as it is today. Our council does not seem to move at the same pace. I'm not laying this on the mayor. But there is no real incentive to move at the same pace that the school does.
"I think it's a real possibility, we're looking at a traffic constraint and a problem for years to come," Neil said.
School officials agreed they must move forward on meeting the needs of the school and not wait on city officials to solve traffic problems.
"We have put together all the homework looking at what's best for the school," Dye said. "We're small enough as a community, we need the city to do that, too."
"As a board," Wood said, "we have to do what's best for the school. We've bent over backwards trying to work together."
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Editor's note: This is the first in a series of articles on the growth in Pea Ridge School and possible solutions to overcrowding.
General News on 07/19/2017