Regretting the Forest Ridge High vote

Some buyer's remorse may be setting in over the Forest Ridge High site.

As noted in today's article, County Commissioner Joe Bryan called the process involving the acquisition of Forest Ridge High an "embarrassment." Bryan and Lindy Brown had both initially voted against buying the property before flipping the votes.

At issue is the $7.5 million price tag for offsite improvements for the parcel. That's higher than the $1.6 million budgeted for the work.

School and county staff tried to downplay how unexpected the $7.5 million tag was on the project.

Deputy County Manager Johnna Rogers said that the known figure for the offsite improvements was $4.2 million when the commissioners voted to buy the site in October 2008.

But Bryan and County Commissioner Tony Gurley said that while the $4.2 million might have been a known amount to school and county staff, it was never mentioned to commissioners.

Bryan said he had flipped his vote to buy the land based on the belief that the offsite improvements would be at the budgeted amount. He said they should have been told that $1.6 million wasn't the expected amount.

Bryan also responded to complaints from outgoing school board member Horace Tart that municipalities were only interested in growing and not in helping the school system. Tart also complained about the state making the school district pay for road work.

“We need to do our due diligence and stop shifting blame to someone else," Bryan said. "We’re no different from any other developer.”

Click here for the handout from the joint meeting. It includes background on the site and how the four alternate sites were found.