New Centertown School one step closer to reality

One of the final steps in making the new Centertown School a reality was taken Monday when County Executive Kenneth Rogers signed documents on a $6.5 million bond to finance the long-awaited project.

After the school system had fulfilled all its commitments as promised, the Warren County Commission followed through at its meeting last month by voting unanimously to approve the General Obligation Bond which is being administered by Cumberland Securities/Morgan Keegan, the company which acts as the county’s investment banker.

Rogers said he was pleased to see things moving smoothly.

“I’m really tickled over it that the county court went ahead and approved it because it was past due,” Rogers said. “I feel like the court is looking ahead because this was something that had to be done, especially with interest rates being low, and with materials rising.”

Education Committee chairman Bill Zechman said the school will be a boon to the Centertown community.

“I’m immensely pleased that we’ve come from zero to the point where we’ve signed the documents to borrow the money,” Zechman said. “And I look forward to the groundbreaking and look even more forward to actually occupying the school.”

Longtime Centertown principal Janie R. Moore expressed her joy for the community.

“It’s long overdue, long awaited,” said Moore. “I think the whole community is just excited that it is finally, we feel like, going to happen. It’s a good faculty, it’s a good community and I think to get a new school, well that’s just the icing on the cake.”

Director of schools Dr. Jerry Hale said yesterday the signing of the bond will help put the project into high gear.

“This is the last step as far as getting the funding together for the project,” said Hale. “Our architect is actually with us right now working on designs to get them ready for the bid package and we’re ready to proceed, ready to go.”

Hale said the groundbreaking would more than likely coincide with the awarding of the bid for the project.

“We probably would want to have the company that gets the bid be part of the groundbreaking,” Hale said. “So I would say some time in November at this point.”

Hale said there is still a fair amount of planning and paperwork to be done.

“Once the plans are finished and all the approvals are done, such as the fire marshal and all that kind of thing, then they’ll go to bids, and we’ll determine the general contractor that gets the project. We’ll do the contracts with them, and then after that, we’ll be ready to proceed and start construction.”