Thursday, March 28, 2024

School Board, City Council Approve Agreements

The Carroll School Board and the Southlake City Council met jointly today to consider agreements that will allow the city to complete the Kirkwood Boulevard extension and will, in turn, help CISD ensure future protections for two of its existing properties.

Trustees voted 7-0 to approve the Special Warranty Deed conveying to the City of Southlake the property interest listed in the proposed Deed related to the completion of the Kirkwood extension and authorized the Board President to execute and deliver the Deed after the City has delivered to the Board properly approved and executed documents abandoning the City’s easement north of Carroll Elementary School to the School District and granting the District a 99-year encroachment agreement along South Peytonville Avenue, West of Carroll Senior High School. Shortly before the Board’s vote, the Council voted 5-0 to approve their end of the deal. Council members Laura Hill and Brandon Bledsoe were absent.

The two entities have been in negotiations since October regarding CISD-owned land on East Highland Avenue just behind the old CIS campus. City leaders were hoping Carroll ISD would grant the city a piece of property that totals about 14,000 square feet. The city needed the property to connect the Kirkwood Boulevard extension they built with East Highland Avenue. A school district cannot, however, give or donate land without gaining something of reasonable value in return.

School Board President Erin Shoupp said the Kirkwood Extension will provide an additional traffic route when the district’s new middle school opens in August. In turn, the City Council’s action today helps protect CISD from future city action on the CES and CSHS properties.

School officials back in 1999 apparently granted the city an easement that comes within about five feet of the CES building. Current school officials, however, say they have concerns about safety should the city ever decide to construct a road or turnabout that close to the school building. The city’s agreement to abandon part of the easement will help avoid this possibility in the future.

Likewise, school officials requested an encroachment agreement from the city for property along the Carroll Senior High School campus. This 99-year agreement will help ensure the city will not take action on Peytonville Avenue that would result in the loss of CISD parking and land along the Senior High’s far west border.

Shoupp said all the agreements consist of issues on land owned by CISD. In order for Trustees to convey a portion of the Carroll Intermediate School property for the city to complete their road, the district needed to receive something of value for CISD taxpayers. The city accelerated construction of its Kirkwood Boulevard extension and needed a corner of CISD’s property to complete their project.

“We feel satisfied that these agreements help protect two of our properties, while ensuring that we gain value for CISD taxpayers for the land we are conveying to the city to complete this road,” Shoupp said. “When all is said and done, it’s the taxpayers and children of this community who will benefit from these actions today. We all have the goal of making this a great community for the families of the children we serve.”

“The joint efforts of the Carroll Independent School District and the City of Southlake have produced an agreement that is beneficial to all Southlake residents,” said Southlake Mayor John Terrell.  “I am pleased that the City Council and the Board of Trustees worked together to construct an agreement which will provide the necessary streets to serve the new Carroll Middle School.”

The Kirkwood Extension is currently under construction and is scheduled to be complete by the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year.  For more information about the project, please click here.

An image of a family bowling and dining

Photo of a solar eclipse