New Woodburn Community School

EASTWOOD ELEMENTARY ON THE MILEGROUND

Mounds of dirt and manure everywhere. But not of the healthy ecological kind. Some of the legal muck:

The Mileground site violates the mandatory provisions of Policy 6200 202.06. The safety of new school sites are specifically regulated by this State Board Policy (126CSR172 – 0 – Title 126 – Legislative Rule – Board of Education – Series 172 – Handbook On Planning School Facilities (6200)), which mandates that (bold added):

202.06. For the safety of students, the site shall be located away from hazards and undesirable environments, such as:

a. Railroads, arterial highways, heavily traveled streets, traffic and congestion
b. Noise, toxic gas escapes from […] odoriferous plants or industries
[…]
e. Taverns, fire stations, bulk storage plants for flammable liquid, and property zoned as industrial
f. Situations where a combination of factors such as those presented above could contribute to the possibility of human entrapment

The statutory violations create severe harm and menacing threats, including:

1.         an increased propensity for crashes involving students in cars and buses – according to a study based on police reports, the heavily-traveled arterial intersection in front of the school is one of the most dangerous intersections for crashes in the entire region;

2.         the ever-enduring threat of enormous civil and criminal liability risks – if there is a calamity involving the students in the arterial highways or their intersection adjacent to the school or near it, in flagrant violation of the mandatory statutes (or if there is any other statute-related calamity), the civil and criminal liability lawsuits will dwarf the total cost of building the school, and render INVISIBLE any monies already spent;

3.         vehicle exhaust air pollution above urban background pollution levels – the scientifically and medically known heart and lung damage (to “sensitive receptors” (young children) who live or attend school in close proximity to high traffic roads and gas stations) causes elevated rates of asthma, bronchitis, flu, and other diseases: cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, leukemia, all potentially fatal;

4.         traffic congestion “approaching gridlock” poisons and entraps students – recent studies find a) “rush hours” congestion about 6 hours per day (7-9 am, noon, and 2:30-6 pm) on the arterials engulfing the school site, b) nationally rated worst possible “levels of service” (congestion): “D” and “F” (“approaching gridlock”), and c) afternoon Mileground arterial traffic speeds dropping from 14.1 mph to 8.4 mph (average) and from 7.7 mph to 6.2 mph (rush hours) if the school is added to the Mileground, and average vehicular delay at the school-front arterial intersection doubling with the addition of the school, causing “entrapment” to be not only “possible,” or likely, but inevitable;

5.         gas stations and vehicle repair shops increase the leukemia rate by 400% – in children living nearby, according to studies; Mileground commerce consists mainly of vehicle repair shops, car dealerships, and gas stations, including three gas stations within a few hundred meters of the site, making an impending Sheetz gas station the fourth. The station is schematically designed to be located immediately adjacent to the school site and building and likely sharing a school drive. Read the rest of this entry »

OFFICIAL IDIOCY AT ITS FINEST

DEVONO: Mileground site an “easy choice.”

And why not? For Devono it was an easy choice to advocate for paddling children in schools too, just a few years before the state outlawed such behavior. What Devono advocated for quickly became codified in law as a kind of child abuse. And what is the Mileground site but another form of child abuse? And any more legal?

As reported in the Dominion Post at the Eastwood Elementary symbolic groundbreaking on the Mileground:

Superintendent Devono: “This is such an exciting opportunity…” DP: “He also said…the [Mileground] site…[was] an easy choice.”

SBA Director and Eastwood grantor Mark Manchin: “I am excited about this opportunity…”

Former State Senator Mike Oliverio: “Eastwood Elementary can be a model for the rest of the country.”

So much for the negligent official backers and the clueless official cheerleaders of Eastwood at its menacing, damaging site: a life-threatening, polluted, congested vortex of crashes, vehicle exhaust, and hazardous commercial and commuter activity that violates state health and safety mandates and various other state statutes.

What about the people who actually have to use the site? Judy Sheers:

“[A] concern…shared among many parents is traffic. ‘The location already has a lot of traffic and with a new school here it could become a problem,’ she said.”

That “concern” can go down as the understatement of the year if not decades, especially pending any calamities at and along the “problem” site.

And the schoolchildren? Abigail Lemine:

“I just don’t like where it is located. There is really bad traffic.”

The oh so knowing and responsible officials will no doubt try to assure this student with eyes for the obvious that she does not know what she knows and that they, the oh so caring officials, will protect students with Mon Schools’ magic fairy dust.

Superintendent Devono:

“the site…an easy choice.”

The ironies of siting a school for small children in this maw of dangers are almost indescribable.

Read the rest of this entry »