A newly proposed field house and weight room at East Ridge High School may have the city handing ownership of the school’s athletic facilities back to the Hamilton County Board of Education.
In December 2016, the Hamilton County School Board voted to have its attorney investigate the possibility of giving the facilities to the city of East Ridge, which offered to pay for repairs and maintenance in return for ownership of the property, according to a Times Free Press article from the time.
The transfer allowed the city to use state grants to cover repairs and upgrades to the school’s two soccer fields, baseball field, tennis court and track, which were at that point unusable due to their deterioration.
“To me it looks like a win-win situation for everybody, because we’re not able to maintain these facilities with our existing funding,” then-school board member David Testerman said at the time.
But now, in order to make the weight room and field house a reality, the athletic fields and football stadium must be transferred back to the board of education in order for county money to be spent on the property, East Ridge Mayor Brian Williams explained in an email.