In another short -sighted move, Cumberland County Schools are building new schools (middle and high schools) and have neglected to include any alternative energy features at all. In fact, the running joke here in the county is that the alternative energy feature of the new schools is a skylight.
The whole process of ramming these new schools down our throats has gone on now for over two years, during which the School Board at the time and the Board of Supervisors got together to run a propaganda campaign, including strongly coercing students to attend key meetings of the BOS while they were discussing the dump, which was supposedly dreamed up as a way to fund the new schools. Got that?
Through all of this, the BOS have been enablers. This question of new schools was rolled into the taking of property by the schools, land and buildings they themselves had sold only a few years earlier. At the same time, the BOS wanted to make sure a dump could be located in the county, but said the two issues were not connected. Every meeting I went to, every quote in the paper, and the actions of both the School Board and the BOS, pointed towards approving the dump as a way of paying for the new schools.
News comes today in the paper that the county has now decided to lease its own Administration Building back from the Cumberland IDA (Industrial Development Authority), where it will be vested as collateral for the $10m new loan to cover ‘expenses’ connected with the proposed Cobb Creek Reservoir project. The financing keeps going around and around, where it stops nobody knows.
Meanwhile, we are stuck with no alternative energy in our brand new school buildings, a decision that will cost the schools, and by extension, the citizens of Cumberland County, hundreds of thousands of dollars in the next 30 years in utility bills, not to mention the environmental impact of a facility heated by steam or propane or electricity.
The curriculum at our schools includes units on renewable energy, recycling, and other green technologies. What a shame the school they go to did not become an example for the students to study, and an example for those in the community that would follow that lead.
The last point for now is that this has happened contrary to the schools’ own policy, last revised in 1996:
ENERGY-CONSERVING CONSTRUCTION
FECBA
Use of energy-conserving construction shall be a high priority. The proposed project which contains the most efficient energy-saving plans within an acceptable budget shall have priority. Energy-saving designs shall be documented in the architectural evaluation and shall comply with educational specifications as determined by the State Department of Education and approved by the School Board.
A continuous study of energy problems and energy sources will be maintained by the administration for future planning in new construction.Adopted: January 9, 1995
Revised: September 9, 1996
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Legal Refs.: Code of Virginia, 1950, as amended, sections22.1-70, 22.1-78, 36-97 to 36-119.1
- Uniform Statewide Building Code
CUMBERLAND COUNTY
Oh well, another day in Cumberland County, the Land That Time ForgotTM
[...] I ever do get any answers from Mr. Reid, I will ask him about that policy that ensures alternative energy and energy-saving devices will be integrated into any future … Not to mention the LEED standard. $33m + for new schools, no alternative energy features. I am [...]