School Board Divided Over Land Acquisition
A legal dispute erupts in a rural school district over the location of a new building, leading to a restraining order.
The story, cleaned up
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The school directors and some of the residents of school district No. 27, near Tolt, are at loggerheads over the selection of a site for the erection of their new school building. Judge Osborn granted a restraining order yesterday on the petition of Moses Morris against George Richardson, H. Morris and Daniel O'Leary, the board of school directors of the district, from building a school house upon the Daniel O'Leary site. Morris claims that on January 27 a petition was signed by a majority of voters of the district calling for a special meeting to locate a school building. At this meeting, a site known as the Moses Morris and James Entwistle site received forty-three votes and the Daniel O'Leary site but one, out of a total vote of fifty-five. The directors refused to abide by the decision of the majority and have selected the O'Leary site, ordered lumber and other materials for building. Morris also asserts that the directors have secured no title to the site upon which they proposed to build.
“The directors refused to abide by the decision of the majority and have selected the O'Leary site.”
Local school board disputes over site selection, bond money, and democratic process have been a staple of civic life in Washington for over a century. The conflict mirrors today's intense neighborhood debates about where public infrastructure—especially schools and housing—should be built.
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