Wade site X-out

By SHELLEY TERRY - Staff Writer - sterry@starbeacon.com
Star Beacon

March 25, 2008 04:33 am

— ASHTABULA — The Ashtabula Area City School Board on Monday crossed Wade Avenue off its list of potential elementary school sites.
The heirs of Diane Burlingham, Ina Claire Yeager and Jean B. Newbury, both of Florida, own the 28 acres in the middle of the school district’s proposed elementary campus site on Wade Avenue in Saybrook Township.
Last week, the heirs’ attorney, Kyle Smith of Jefferson, received a letter from the women saying they would not negotiate with anyone other than the school board. However, the board and the heirs could not come to an agreement, Janine Trebuchon-Wertz, school board president, said Monday.
“We now are looking at other property,” she said. “The property we are looking at is in Saybrook Township.”
Trebuchon-Wertz would not elaborate, but did say the board is very disappointed it couldn’t put all of the elementary schools in the city.
“We really did exhaust all possibilities,” she said.
Plymouth resident, Debbie Wright, who organized the Neighborhood Schools Only Committee (N.O.), strongly urges the school board to consider using properties it already owns.
“A new $9 million elementary school in our neighborhoods is the best solution,” Wright said.
Throughout the past three weeks, Jaeger and Newbury raised the sale price of the Wade Avenue property to $250,000, to the school board and the city, which also bid on the property, according to City Council President Robert Beacom.
City officials said they wanted to build a high tech industrial park on the site.
In 2004, the city bought a tract of land off Wade Avenue so it would have access to the property, former city solicitor Tom Simon has said.
At last Wednesday night’s school board meeting, Trebuchon-Wertz denounced council’s $125,000 bid for the Burlingham property, saying it ambushed the school board’s $100,000 bid.
Simon has said a government entity cannot pay more than the fair-market value of land and $250,000 is above the fair market price.