By Dale King
A “virtual” public hearing will be held at the Dec. 8 Boca Raton City Council meeting on plans to transfer about 15 acres of city-owned land to the Palm Beach County School Board for construction of a new elementary school within the city limits.
All council meetings are held online. People who want to watch or take part should log onto the city’s web site, myboca.us and read the participation instructions. The meeting begins at 6 p.m.
Currently referred to as School O5-C, the education facility will be built on land being donated by the city of Boca Raton near Don Estridge High Tech Middle School, a donation first orchestrated by then-Councilman and now Mayor, Scott Singer, and District 5 Board Member and School Board Chair, Frank Barbieri, in January 2019.
The board had money available for a school project if one was ready to go. Singer and Barbieri jumped at the opportunity to bring it to Boca.
The site will house the first new school to be built in the city in many years. It will provide up to 1,000 new student seats to relieve overcrowding at all the city’s elementary schools. There is also talk of turning some schools, possibly O5-C, into a kindergarten-grade 8 center.
The Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously Nov. 5 to approve the land transfer and recommend the City Council follow suit. Voting “aye” were Chairman Larry Cellon and members Arnold Sevell, Jonathan Whitney, Jean De Roche and Larry Snowden.
No one spoke for or against the land transfer at a Planning and Zoning public hearing last month.
During the meeting, Deputy City Manager Mike Woika said the process regulating the sale of city property was being used to transfer the property. “This falls under the sale of city property regulation. It is not a true sale, but we are following this procedure.”
Woika said the school known as O5-C “opened to the students from Verde Elementary as their home school was rebuilt during the 2019-20 school year. Verde students [were] to return to their new campus in the fall of 2020 and Addison Mizner students will attend the temporary O5-C while their campus is rebuilt in 2020-2021.”
Once this is done, the portables will be removed, and School O5-C will rise.
“The city is working closely with the Palm Beach County School District to make coordinated and complementary improvements,” officials said about the school construction work.
City Manager Leif Ahnell said the 15.015 acres being turned over to the School Board are located “east of Military Trail and south of Spanish River Drive.”
The extensive amount of paperwork for the land transfer includes several easements, a deed, a donation agreement and a pact allowing for joint use of a parking lot to be built on the property by the School Board.
Ahnell added: “As this city property is being transferred to the School Board through a donation, there are no revenues or expenses associated with the transfer.”