Gloucester County Boards Check Another Box In The Page Middle School Property Deception

The Gloucester County, Virginia Board of Supervisors and School Board are moving forward with "their" value engineered consolidated transportation facility. I say “their” because “their” facility is certainly not what is in the best interest of the community. Tens of thousands of dollars was wasted on a study to determine the best, out of three locations, to construct a new county garage, school bus garage and utility yard. When the results of the study were presented to the boards, they completely disregarded all recommendations and had the person doing the study make the final results reflect what “they” wanted them to reflect.

There has been an ongoing effort to vacate the old Page Middle School property that started several years before the tornado “damaged” the school in 2010. We will provide a more comprehensive story on those efforts very soon. Gloucester needs these facilities and more, but we don’t need them piecemealed, value engineered and scattered throughout the county. They need to last and need to be able to be expanded when growth dictates. The land they intend to build the transportation facility on was supposed to be a place for a future elementary school. When Harry Corr and Breckenridge Ingles develop all the land they own in that area, a new elementary school will be needed there. But then isn’t that why the school board bought the property to begin with. So certain developers could obtain the Old Page properties avoid development proffers? That theory will be explored in a future story.

In the meantime; take a look at the documents contained in the Slideshare presentation below, especially the pictures and construction cost estimates. Pay close attention to the utility department photos, these are the places our employees who take care of our water and sewer systems work every day. A couple of things the study left out: If utility employees are working in the storage yard behind Southern States and need to use the restroom, they must travel all the way to the employee trailer on Carriage Street near the court circle on Main Street. That certainly isn’t within reasonable walking distance. The study also does not mention anything about the black mold issues in the basement of Utilities’ main office, which is also located on Carriage Street.

Tell the Board of Supervisors and School Board “their” transportation facility is not what “We The People” of Gloucester County need or want.

Gloucester transportation facility request for proposals from Kenneth Hogge Sr