Red Bank athletics boosters and other interested residents turned out Tuesday night for a public hearing on whether to proceed with a complicated land trade in order to facilitate construction of a new middle school for the community.
Money for the new school was set aside several years ago. However, Hamilton County Department of Education officials say the only way to make it feasible to actually build the new school behind the existing Red Bank High School is to free up properties currently owned by Erlanger Medical Center and the town of Red Bank.
That land would be used for new athletic facilities, officials explained during the hearing.
Those facilities would include new girls’ soccer and softball fields. The existing girls’ field would be used for boys’ athletics.
The complication comes from the fact that the town received federal grant money for the park HCDE now wants, with the stipulation that the property would remain a city park forever.
City Manager Chris Dorsey said there is a way around that stipulation: replacing the park property at the middle school with new, equally valuable park land.
The town is proposing to include two donated parcels of land on Stringers Ridge, valued at about $90,000, in the exchange. The remaining new park land would come from the site where the existing middle school sits on Dayton Boulevard.
Attending the hearing, in addition to Red Bank officials and residents, were a number of local political figures, including HCDE school board member Chip Baker; County Commissioner Richard Casavant; and David Cantrell, who is running against Commissioner Casavant in the upcoming county election.