SCHOOLS, CITY DISCUSS ROADS TO VO-TECH SITE

Unless Cape Girardeau changes its schedule for building new roads, the newly approved vocational-technical school will be built before motorists can safely drive to it.

The City Council and Board of Education met Wednesday in part to try to make their plans mesh better.

The school board recently purchased 75 acres for building a vo-tech school and high school west of the intersection of Kingshighway and the Southern Expressway. The property doesn't actually border Kingshighway only a gravel section of Silver Springs Road.

Access from the south is only through an intersection not designed to handle the volume of traffic the vo-tech school would attract.

The school board plans to have the vo-tech school open in 1999, possibly in January but probably in August, said superintendent Dan Tallent. School officials would want Southern Expressway extended to the school site by then, with Mt. Auburn Road extended south later.

The high school would come later, Tallent said.

But the city's capital improvement plan calls for construction on both road-building projects to begin after July 1999.

Tallent told the council he would like the Southern Expressway extension to go in a straight line west from the intersection. City plans call for an S-shaped street to coincide with an already existing sewer right of way, said City Planner Kent Bratton.

The right of way borders on the school property, but the straight line doesn't. The school district would try to buy the land north of its property to reach the expressway extension, Tallent said.

However, Bratton pointed out that the sewer in the right of way is too wide to allow any building above it.

Mayor Al Spradling III said the city will try to work things out so the school will be accessible when it opens. He said capital projects could start ahead of schedule if money is available.

One way that could happen is if the city decides not to widen Broadway, only to repave it. He said some business owners on Broadway are circulating a petition to keep the street from being widened. "Some people question the benefit of eight feet or 10 feet," Spradling said.

Councilman Melvin Gately said the city sold its transportation tax to the public with a specific timetable for projects. Spradling said the city should hold public hearings before deciding whether to change the schedule.

Councilman J.J. Williamson asked whether the school system has any money it could contribute to get street construction going. Tallent said no, but that he would speak to the district's attorney about arranging financing through a lease-purchase agreement.

The two government bodies also discussed possible joint planning for Casquin Park and the planned elementary school on North Sprigg Street. The undeveloped park is just north of the school site.

Tallent said the school would have a ball field and a playground. Councilmen and school board members agreed to have officials from the city Parks and Recreation Department and the school system discuss having the park and school facilities complement each other.

Williamson asked the school board about plans for Washington and May Greene schools. After the students in those schools are moved out, Tallent said, the district plans to sell the properties.

He said the district will first try to sell to someone with a use for the buildings. Otherwise, the school district will tear down the buildings and sell the lots, he said. He noted that May Greene is in much better shape than Washington School and is more likely to be salvaged.

"We don't want another St. Francis Hospital," Williams said, referring to the long-abandoned building on Good Hope Street.

The school district "will not be blind to what happens after it's sold," Tallent said.

Spradling said he hopes the two bodies will get together again for updates and to work out any new problems.

They two held a similar meeting Aug. 29, 1996, when the school board was planning its successful bond issue for building new schools.