Board rejects proposal for Spring Valley high school

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2001 | 11:17 a.m.

A proposed high school at Buffalo Drive and Twain Avenue received a thumbs-down from the Spring Valley Town Advisory Board and about three dozen residents on Tuesday.

The five board members voted without dissent to deny the Clark County School District's application to build the 2,700-student high school. The issue goes to the Clark County Commission for a final decision Sept. 5.

"I am stunned," Commissioner Erin Kenny, a strong supporter of the school, said from her home following the vote. District staff and Kenny had argued that the school -- and an accompanying 34-acre park -- were sorely needed in the area.

Town board member James Shibler, who said he is a bus driver for the school district, moved to deny the application "to send a message to Erin Kenny that we don't want it."

The commissioner said she remains committed to the proposed school.

"I have never voted against a school siting," Kenny said. "I don't intend to ever vote against a school siting."

Kenny said she has never seen the County Commission reject a school application, even in the face of occasionally stiff opposition from nearby homeowners.

As with other battles over school placement, residents said they don't want the traffic and thousands of students that a high school would bring.

"We don't want it or like it or need it, and most of us are senior citizens," Betty Gavere, 79, said.

Donald Virag, a transplanted New Yorker, said any new high school belongs "in the boondocks."

Neighbors said they also expected and received official notice that the site would be a park. They said they feel tricked now that a 43-acre high school is part of the plan.

And some said an adjacent gravel mining operation would be unsafe for teenagers.

Matthew LaCroix, school district assistant zoning director, said the new school has to be built to relieve overcrowding at nearby high schools. Although the school wouldn't open until 2003, he said 1,500 students could move in today if it were open.

He said the school district consistently faces opposition when siting new schools, but still must place 92 new schools -- including 16 high schools -- on the ground within the next six years.

Even at that pace, the district doesn't expect to keep up with the growth of the student population, LaCroix said.

The school district has done what it can to lessen the impact on the surrounding community, including sinking the school and the football field at least six feet below ground level to limit visibility, he said.

The school district also will include thick landscaping along Buffalo, he said.

"This is a project that will beautify the community," LaCroix said.

Kenny said she doesn't understand the intense opposition to the project, particularly because residents will have the use of the school athletic fields and the 34-acre park.

The site has been designated as a future home for a school for almost 20 years, she said. The park, Kenny said, will include a tree farm.

"This is going to be a unique educational facility," she said. "We're talking about having one of the most well-landscaped, beautiful park sites in all of Southern Nevada. ... It's going to be gorgeous."

Kenny has at least a handful of supporters in the Spring Valley neighborhood. Gary Johnson, who lives across the street from the site, said he wants the school.

"I have kids. We need schools," Johnson said. "Where else are we going to put it?"