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Questions raised about<br>GC's school fence project

GC VILLAGE — Construction on Grand Canyon School’s new anti-elk fence was scheduled to begin this week amid controversy of how the project was approved.

Grand Canyon School maintenance supervisor Andrew Aldaz pointed out current examples of elk damage, such as the center-field fence on the Phantoms’ baseball field.

The project, which will cost nearly $50,000, was approved in a June 5 special meeting of the school board on a 4-1 vote. School officials contend there were "no changes" to the fencing project and nothing was done to conceal aspects of it from the public. But one school board member, Bess Foster, along with other local residents and teachers do not approve of how things progressed.

"The thing that upsets me is we got presented with it that night," Foster said. "I was thinking, did I miss something?"

Eric Guiessaz and Clarinda Vail, both of whom have experience with public meetings from their involvement in other issues, believe the state’s open meetings law was broken.

"First I believe, and so does Clarinda, that the agenda was not followed," Guiessaz said. "The way a meeting has to flow is what is on the agenda. I feel the agenda was breached."

The June 5 agenda item on the fencing read: "Construction bid for fencing approval — discussion, action."

Dale Fitzner, school superintendent, said the school district did nothing wrong.

"No open meeting laws were broken," Fitzner said. "Bess voted against it. Her concern was ... when the agenda item was on the agenda, it didn’t say, look, it’s changed, and that there was an assumption of there being a large fence around the ballfield."

Vail echoed those very words, saying most everyone in the community believed there would be a fence only around the ballfields.

"My biggest concern was even school-board members did not know," Vail said. "The change occurred with the National Park Service knowing it. The school board had no idea. I’m concerned about the open meeting laws. All we’ve heard for years is it would just be around the fields. Now suddenly, it’s the whole school."

Andrew Aldaz, maintenance supervisor, said the project has always been there.

"I really doubt those who believe we rushed it through," Aldaz said. "This is a project from an original plan from 1997 to redo the field. It’s not new to the community. It was the proposal and plan that was approved by the community and the National Park Service and was part of the original bid. We took it out because of our budget. We’ve been working on it for four or five years."

After lengthy discussion on the issue at the June 5 meeting, Chuck Wahler, school board president, made a motion to approve the Brown Custom Fencing contract for $59,921.05 "for the installation of wildlife fencing per the bid specifications." Tom Pittenger seconded and it passed 4-1.

Prior to that discussion, the board had approved the field renovation construction bid by Warner’s Nursery. That bid was $151,718, a base bid minus housing, "for all sports field renovations. It passed on a 5-0 vote.

Sara White, National Park Service compliance officer, said Fitzner and Aldaz came to her and said there was a real concern about the safety of the children of playing on those fields because of elk. White said the NPS agreed about the possibilities for a child-elk encounter.

"They created a project proposal, they developed the project ... that they needed to enclose the school grounds as well with concerns of elk eating the sod, concerns about protection, and brought that to the project review board," White said. "We listened to the project proposal and unanimously agreed that the children needed to be protected."

In the NPS-approval process, natural and cultural resources managers were involved. White said the fence needed to be a certain height and agreement was reached on that. And cultural resources had concerns about visibility of the fence, especially with it blending in with the school’s historic high school building on the property.

"They’ve got a fence that’s the right fence and color to protect the elk," White said. "The project review board unanimously agreed that this was a good project and recommended it to the superintendent of the park. The superintendent hasn’t told us yes or no yet, but I suspect ... that the project will be doable for the park."

Fitzner said the NPS compliance committee wanted to connect the buildings, which would reduce the amount of fencing needed to enclose the area.

Fitzner said the fence was not designed with safety features only in mind, but it had to meet the primary objective of keeping animals out and letting people in.

"I feel bad that some people don’t really like the idea of fencing beyond the perimeters of the ballfields," Fitzner said. "I think that’s unfortunate. I do feel that if they walk it, they’ll understand it has a logical design concept to it and it will provide the protection that I think we need from the animals destroying the field and will also provide some other safety features."

The project did not require an environmental assessment because "there are no adverse impacts to the natural or cultural resources," White said. "My office will write up a categorical exclusion, specifically for an enclosure or enclosure fencing."

Aldaz took board members on a tour of the school grounds during the June 5 meeting to illustrate how the fence would be going in. He repeated that tour for the media on Thursday afternoon last week and said he would be willing to take others in the community around to explain the project.

"My biggest intent for this is going to be protecting the school’s investment in keeping elk out," Aldaz said, thoughts shared by the majority of the school board. "The school’s biggest concern was the safety of kids by having elk on the football (soccer) field at the same time."

Aldaz said there were two elk on the field in the past year, information that "shocked" White of the NPS.

"To me, having elk on the field is almost like practicing during a lightning storm," Aldaz said. "That’s just asking for trouble."

The original fencing proposal had a height of six feet. It was later raised to eight feet.

"The six-foot fence, that wouldn’t protect our investment when it comes to the elk," Aldaz said. "One of the things is we talked to people who felt the eight-foot fence would be sufficient."

Another aspect of safety involves keeping people from using the school’s campus as a crossing point.

"Right now the rec center is a big attraction," Aldaz said. "When they put the rec center in there, John Vest (former superintendent) had a big concern with that because of the same reasons we have now."

Future changes with access to the fence could be a possibility.

"We’re enclosing these areas because we’re putting a lot of money in these fields and keeping the animals out. What we do after that will be up to the incoming superintendent (Vernon) and how he wants to do that," Aldaz said in reference to future access.


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