JEFFERSONVILLE — The mayor of Jeffersonville has characterized the quest to open a downtown elementary school on Court Avenue as a battle for a better city, but some residents who oppose the plan are questioning his involvement in the war.
“You’re the mayor of all of us,” said Wendy Sheppard, a Jeffersonville resident who thinks a school on Court Avenue would be unsafe for students. “You’re supposed to lead; you’re supposed to be there for each of us.”
But Mayor Mike Moore sees his support of a Court Avenue school as doing his job.
“I come to work every day trying to improve the city of Jeff and that’s what I’m doing,” he said.
Clark County residents are currently collecting signatures on petitions for and against the proposed $15 million downtown elementary school project, driven by the imminent closure of two other schools in the area: Spring Hill and Maple.
Moore is a part of Jeff United, a group of residents collecting signatures for the Court Avenue school. If his organization garners the most signatures, the project will go forward. If the opposing side receives more support, former Spring Hill and Maple students will be bussed to nearby schools instead.
Andrew Melin, the superintendent of Greater Clark County Schools, said he appreciated Moore’s support of the project and stressed that the mayor has a right to his opinion.
The group opposing the project though, which has no name and, as far as Sheppard knows, no outside funding, doesn't just protest Moore’s support of the downtown school, but the way he’s been cheering it on.
“It’s supposed to be a ‘fair’ process, but it is not,” said Alice Butler in a Facebook message. Butler also opposes the school.
Currently, the mayor’s office is only offering residents yellow “yes” petitions, which are the documents that residents have to sign in support of the school. Moore refuses to supply blue petitions, which residents have to sign if they oppose the school.
“If the people opposed to a new downtown school want to have a mayor who wants to see property values decline and wants to see businesses and families leave Jeff, they need to elect a new mayor,” Moore said.
While opposition member Bill Hawkins called Moore’s moves unethical, the mayor said that his decisions have been cleared by the city’s legal entities.
Members of the opposition group also claim that the mayor is unfairly funding the pro-school campaign with taxpayer dollars.
Moore is quick to clarify that no money supplied by taxpayers is going toward the Jeff United campaign. Since October, Jeffersonville’s redevelopment commission has contributed at least $66,095 to ProMedia Group, LLC, a company the commission already has a contract with, to spend on the pro-school campaign, according to invoices obtained by the News and Tribune and posted on Butler’s “Stop GCC’s Wasteful Spending” Facebook group.
But those funds, which do not have to be approved by the redevelopment commission, came from sales or leases on properties owned by the commission, not from taxpayers, said Moore, who is a member of the commission. Hawkins argues that by supplying “yes” positions in the mayor’s office during work hours, taxpayer funds are still being spent.
Monty Snelling, a redevelopment commission member, said he wasn’t originally aware of the extra payments that were sent to ProMedia, but that he didn’t have an opinion on the allocation. Snelling did say that a modern, downtown school would be helpful from a redevelopment standpoint.
The mayor believes he is carrying out the redevelopment commission’s mission by supporting the downtown school. The commission’s goal is to bring new investment to the city and improve quality of life, and businesses do consider schools when deciding where to call their home, Moore said. Plus, pulling a school out of a large neighborhood has been shown to drive down property values.
“You know, our campaign and our involvement with this and the funding of it, it’s just like any other project [the commission is] doing,” he said.
Moore plans on continuing to fund the pro-school campaign.
The redevelopment commission has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to Greater Clark County Schools outside of Jeffersonville, too, Moore said. The city established a tax increment financing district near Interstate 265 where 10 percent of extra tax revenues collected go toward the school system.
Hawkins believes that the money provided by the city could give the Jeff United campaign an unfair advantage.
“Money does drive elections, I will say that,” Hawkins said. “Because it drives public relations.”
But Moore called the city’s financial support “smart.”
“When we set out to do this, we set out to win,” he said.
It’s not Jeff United’s potential success that bothers Sheppard. It’s her worry that not everyone will end up being represented during the petition process.
Sheppard and other members of the Court Avenue school opposition group have taken issue with the tone Moore has used to describe their stance to other media outlets. He told one news station that the petition process was a “good versus evil” fight.
Sheppard has been trying to elicit an apology from Moore, but the mayor continues to question the motives of her group.
“I’m completely puzzled and troubled at how somebody could say the kids downtown do not deserve the same opportunities as everybody else, and it’s offensive to me,” Moore said.
But Sheppard says she doesn’t oppose the downtown school for that reason. Instead, she believes that having a school so close to the Clark County Courthouse and jail could pose a safety risk to children. She, as well as Hawkins, are also worried about traffic in the area. Sheppard feels that a child could be hit by passing vehicles, while Hawkins thinks that the bad parking problems in the area will only get worse.
Both Jeff United and Sheppard’s group have until June 9 at noon to turn in their signatures.