Marble Falls council, school board to jointly discuss projects

By CHRIS PORTER • Daily Tribune Staff

MARBLE FALLS - City Council and Marble Falls Independent School District board members are set to clear the air around ongoing school and road construction during a special workshop session set for 6 p.m. Monday at City Hall.

School district officials were caught by surprise earlier this month after learning about the city’s plans to build a minor north-south collector road through the proposed location for a new high school sports complex.

“This just threw a huge wrench in a lot of our plans,” MFISD Assistant Superintendent of Business and Finance Glenn Graham said during a Sept. 19 meeting between the council and the Planning and Zoning Commission.

The Monday meeting will be the first between the school board and the council, Interim City Manager Judy Miller said.

“It’s just a discussion, really,” she said. “They’ll talk about anything they need to talk about that they might not understand.”

MFISD Superintendent Ryder Warren said he hopes to bring both groups up to speed on the district’s plans.

School district voters in May approved a $63.2 million bond issue to fund construction at five district campuses, including a new $7.6 million athletics facility to be located near the high school campus.

“With a building project of this magnitude, we need to make sure we’re all on the same page,” Warren said. “We’re only a month or two from kicking (construction) off, and we want to make sure everyone knows what’s going on.”

The city is planning to build a major collector road north from RR 1431 to serve both the high school and a new Colt Elementary School campus. The second road would help relieve pressure on RR 1431 before and after sporting events at the new stadium, which will hold up to 5,000 spectators.

The road is a necessity, Marble Falls Mayor Raymond Whitman said.

“You tell me how you’re going to get 5,000 spectators out of there during an event,” he said earlier. “The last thing we want to see, the last thing the city will see, is a (bottleneck) at the high school like what we see today.”

Some nearby residents are also taking issue with the proposed stadium construction, which calls for a 200-car parking lot near the High Ridge subdivision.

Residents said the district’s plans to build the lot and a large retention pond on two school-owned resident lots could violate certain deed restrictions.

Those restrictions limit construction on the two lots to single-family residential homes, she said.

A quiet neighborhood

“The reason I bought property in that area is because it’s a nice, quiet neighborhood,” said High Ridge resident Peggy Simon at a crowded council meeting Sept. 24. “We want to keep it that way.”

Graham, who represented the district at the council meeting, said the current proposal is the most cost-effective option.

“We have to consider all of our taxpayers, and we have to protect taxpayer money as well. Not to sound cliché, but the needs of the whole outweigh the needs of the few,” he said.

Council members said they’ll delay making a decision on re-zoning the two lots for the school’s use until a preliminary construction plat is submitted by the school district.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. in council chambers, 800 Third St. in Marble Falls.

chris@thepicayune.com

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Marble Falls council, school board
to jointly discuss projects