Narrowsburg school deliberations

Should Delaware Valley be leased to gas drillers?

By FRITZ MAYER

JEFFERSONVILLE, NY — The members of the Sullivan West Central School District Facilities Needs Committee have been gathering information for the past 18 months to help them decide what to do with the district’s two mothballed schools. At a meeting at the elementary school in Jeffersonville on October 27, they agreed to recommend to the full school district board that it move forward with three actions.

One would be to have environmental studies performed on both the Narrowsburg campus and the Delaware Valley Campus. Another action would be to study the feasibility of conveying the Narrowsburg School and its 14-acre athletic field to the Town of Tusten, or perhaps another entity. The third action would be to delay the final decision on the disposition of the Narrowsburg School for at least a year to give members of the Narrowsburg community time to explore the feasibility of receiving the school.

The decisions came at the end of a meeting of the committee and about 45 residents, many of whom live in and around Narrowsburg. The residents took part in a wide-ranging discussion about possible outcomes for the two schools, which cost the district about $345,000 per year to maintain, and have physical problems that need attention.

In April, the Narrowsburg school was appraised for about $700,000, but because of an extensive renovation in 2003, the district still has a mortgage of $3.6 million on the building. Superintendent Dr. Kenneth Hilton told the audience that the district was prohibited from selling the school to a private business or person for less than the appraised value. He said, however, that if the board so decided the school could be given away to a municipality for a public use. If the school was sold or given away, the district would still be responsible for repaying the mortgage, but the state would also continue to help pay down the debt. The district pays 30 percent of each payment, and the state pays 70 percent.

Tusten resident Tom Prendergast indicated that there was interest among some residents of Narrowsburg in having the building conveyed to the town. School board member Rose Crotty cautioned, however that there must be a workable plan. She said, “I hate to think that the town would have to be burdened by maintaining this building” if the plan didn’t work out.

The option of the town taking over the building has been discussed in passing at Tusten meetings in the past, but no plan has been put forward.

The conversation about the Delaware Valley School was less expansive. Hilton said he had the feeling that the Town of Freemont had no interest in taking over that school and its sprawling 68-acre site. Board member Noel van Swol repeated his opinion that the district should retain ownership to both buildings because the district might need them again if gas drilling activity leads to a sharp increase in population.

Hilton said he talked to the superintendent of the school district in Dimock, PA, and said that a surge in the population of school children was unlikely.

Van Swol also said that, as a founding member of the Sullivan-Delaware Property Owners Association, he has been in contact with gas drilling companies, and he has mentioned to several that the Delaware Valley School might be available for lease as a headquarters or staging area for a gas drilling operation. He said that two of the companies expressed interest.