If Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger has his way, East Hamilton will be the last high school built locally where football fans are still using portable toilets nearly a decade after the school opened.
While complimenting Commissioner Sabrena Smedley at Wednesday's County Commission meeting on her plan to use her district's discretionary general fund money to tap into the county's line of credit to issue a capital bond for new restrooms for East Hamilton, the mayor said he intends to ask the commission to fund athletic fields and associated needs when school construction is considered in the future.
That has not been the case in recent years, but it's the right thing to do. It's better for the county to take the financial hit at the outset rather than punish the individual communities by having them build the facilities piecemeal, figure out how to pay for them and risk the price for construction rising when they finally can afford it.
At a minimum, the commission should fund the design and determine the cost of such facilities. That way, if commissioners don't go along with fully funding the extra-curriculars, the schools will know how much they'll need to raise or attempt to get donated.
Commissioners may say, and probably will, that the community should have some type of buy-in on their new facilities. But they should never again allow excitement to be created over the opening of a new high school, only to see that excitement die when students, parents and the community learn how much was not supplied for them.
Since the Chattanooga city and Hamilton County school systems merged in 1997, two high schools have been built, Signal Mountain Middle High and East Hamilton Middle High. Money was not appropriated for athletic fields and attendant facilities in either case.
Funds for sod, lighting, stands and press box were donated for the Signal Mountain school, while the East Hamilton community helped raise money to have the bare minimum of a field in its third season, according to Times Free Press archives.
As East Hamilton prepared for what it hoped would be its first season in its new stadium in 2010 (but wasn't), estimates put the cost of concession stands and permanent bathrooms at $90,000-$100,000. In 2011, then-County Commissioner Larry Henry estimated the school needed about $2 million to complete its baseball, softball, soccer and football fields.
Four years later, Smedley, who was elected to follow Henry, said $94,000 in discretionary money had been set aside, $6,000 short of the now 5-year-old $100,000 estimate.
However, the estimated price tag for the concession stands/bathrooms facility now has risen to $125,000.
That's what brought Smedley to her proposal of tapping the county's $55 million line of credit. Hers is a better idea than that of Hamilton County Commission Chairman Chester Bankston, who recently wanted to tap the county's line of credit for 73 percent of the cost of a $3,400 athletic field striper for Ooltewah High School. Although the request was approved, unlike Smedley, Bankston did not offer to exchange any discretionary money in order to requisition the item.
"This is kind of the way it should be done," Coppinger told Smedley, "and I applaud you for doing that."
Although no date is on the horizon for the county to consider school construction, and no new high school is proposed for the near future, one that is likely to warrant action is Chattanooga School for the Liberal Arts (CSLA). A new building has been suggested for the K-8 magnet school for more than a decade and a half. And expansion of it to a full K-12 school like Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences (CSAS) also has been proposed.
Fortunately, CSLA sits on a large piece of property at the corner of East Brainerd and Vance roads. If it were to become a high school, the space would afford room to build athletic fields. CSAS does not field a football team, but it offers baseball, soccer, softball and track teams, all of which use outdoor facilities. Such an expansion of CSLA might offer the first opportunity for Coppinger to make good on his thought.
Whether or not that happens, the inclusion of athletic fields and associated needs in the estimated cost of a new school is the right and smart thing to do. It will save time and money and is in the best interests of the community involved.