ANDERSON COUNTY — Anderson County Council will gather for a called meeting Sept. 9 to reconsider a request from Anderson School District 5 for a zoning amendment.

During the regularly scheduled County Council meeting on Tuesday night, council was split 3-3 on a vote concerning the school district’s request to amend the zoning for more than 120 acres on Old Williamston Road across from Cobb’s Glen in Anderson. The land would be a site for a new middle school.

School District 5 Superintendent Betty Bagley said district officials would make themselves available to the council for the called meeting. The gathering is set to start at 10 a.m. in the County Council chambers in the historic county courthouse in downtown Anderson.

“We are available for any clarification, for any discussion, for whatever is necessary to take away anyone’s reservations about permitting this to go forward,” Bagley said.

Council members Larry Greer, Gracie Floyd and Bill McAbee voted against the rezoning request.

Without a majority decision in favor of the amendment, the ordinance died.

Council member Floyd said she was not against education but was against how schools in the district were being distributed.

“It appears as though all the newer schools are being built in the northern part of the county,” Floyd said. “There is no building program for a school in our area (the southern portion of the county). Our area appears to be being used for magnet schools or schools for the arts but not for a regular school. The people in my district have long been aware of this situation, and they are always talking about that, and they are concerned about that.”

She said she had shown school district officials land in the district that would have placed the middle school in the inner city.

"In the long run, it would have been worth the effort. It would have brought back the community and given those areas an opportunity to flourish again with the school being there," Floyd said.

During the meeting Tuesday, Bagley said the new school was needed to ease the overcrowding at McCants Middle School.

Bagley said the proposed site for the school was chosen to ensure that the population of McCants and the new school would remain diverse.

“We really wanted to do to find property that was centered like McCants,” Bagley said. “We didn¹t want McCants to become the inner-city school and the new school (on old Williamston Road) to have become the suburban school. We wanted to have diversity in both schools.”

Another new middle school, she said, would provide a new facility for students at Southwood Middle School and for some Lakeside Middle School students.

“There is a new middle school being built on Dobbins Bridge Road,” Bagley said. “The entire Southwood faculty and students will move into that school. Southwood will be changed into a new school for the arts. It will be a changed function, but it will be a viable, living, breathing building.”

Changing several schools’ functions allows the district to keep the schools open, school officials said. And, Bagley said, $140 million the district secured through a bond referendum is being split across the district.

"There’s not a school that will not benefit,” she said. “All the schools are going to be brought up to the same standards. Your students will go to the new school or Southwood or Lakeside or McCants and a new ninth-grade academy. But they will all be the same standard.”

Council member Greer said he was concerned about the fate of schools in inner-city Anderson.

“I’m also reminded as we talk about schools, schools are community assets, and they are community-driven,” he said. “I’m reminded of what happened when McDuffie High School was closed and Hanna-Westside Extension school was opened. … McDuffie was not just closed, there was an effort to remove it from memory. I watched it happen. I’m concerned that we’re moving schools away from those communities.”

Council member Cindy Wilson said even though the new school would mean traffic congestion in her district, she felt the school was a good thing.

“I’m very concerned about this,” Wilson said. “I’m just wondering if we couldn’t possibly work together with our school district and do a better job of this. There’s a lot riding on it. I hate to see the congestion in my community, but there’s a need. I think there should be some measure, or some

means that we can resolve this.”

Council member Ron Wilson supported the rezoning measure as well and hoped that council would bring the vote back up for reconsideration.

“I think we screwed up,” Ron Wilson said. “When we stop the school building process, we screw up progress. I hope that somebody who voted on the prevailing side will make a motion to reconsider. I think this has been one of our better meetings this year.”

But none of the dissenting council members brought the issue up again Tuesday, and the matter died at the meeting. On Wednesday, however, Bagley received a fax from the council regarding the called meeting, she said.

Bagley said has already contacted the property owners to see whether they can delay purchasing the property until the matter is resolved.

Time is of the essence in terms of costs as well, she said.

“It’s not just about the property,” Bagley said. “In this economic slump we’re in, it’s true we’ll have more bidders if we wait longer. But the price of materials is going up. The sooner you get that bid in, the more you lock in those prices. The more we delay, the greater the chance of the cost going up.”

Floyd said she was willing to bring together her constituents and the school district officials to talk. She hopes to see a resolution to the issue, she said.

“I do not want to stop progress. I just want some of it in my district,” she said.