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'It's not over,' says Craven, vowing to fight on

Bill Orr didn’t mince words when the Henderson County Board of Commissioners and School Board adjourned a rare joint meeting that ratified the county’s decision to build an all-new Hendersonville High School.
“We just got screwed,” said Orr, a retired bank executive and president of the HHS Alumni Association. “It’s a major disappointment.”
Asked whether the fight is now over to preserve the historic horseshoe-shaped Stillwell building for continued use, Orr said, “I think it is, because the two people that weren’t here (Lisa Edwards and Josh Houston), they both supported the commissioners’ plan. … They just skipped right over parking. They’re going to build a bridge over Five Points? That’s ridiculous. How much is that going to cost?”
When commissioners polled the School Board members, all but one, Amy Lynn Holt, said they would go along with the new $53 million HHS campus even as they still harbored misgivings.
“Amy Holt tried but she got no support,” Orr said. “I’m totally disappointed.”


‘It’s not over’

Orr’s view that nothing more can be done to reverse the decision was not shared universally.
“It’s not over,” said Blair Craven, a 1997 HHS graduate. “There’s still the rezoning. There’s other avenues that can be taken that we have talked to attorneys about. I look forward to getting on the board in two weeks and continuing to talk about it.”
The major building project at the city’s northern gateway requires a zoning permit and site plan review from the city Planning Board and City Council, a process that’s expected to get under way soon and take about three months.
Carey O’Cain, a retired construction manager and HHS graduate who has pushed aggressively for a combined renovation and new construction plan, was also considering the next route to save the historic classroom building for students’ use.
“There probably are some other steps,” he said. “They’re still missing out on a perfect opportunity to integrate the Stillwell building. They’re showing budget creep already. One commissioner was talking about the possibility of doing a (pedestrian) bridge over Highway 25. That’s budget creep.
“Another one was talking about having parking spaces over in Edwards Park. What are they thinking? They showed in the rendering students crossing over Five Points and going into the building. I’m aware of five students that have been killed at Five Points in my lifetime. They’re still showing the building within 25 feet to 50 feet of the edge of Highway 25.”
If the new campus is built as now configured, O’Cain said Stillwell will be lost forever.
“They can’t utilize Stillwell later on if they build a parking lot between it because it violates a key element in architecture to keep the students safe,” he said. “They can’t come back later on and say, ‘Oh, now we’re going to put our classrooms over in the Stillwell building.’ They can’t do that after they’ve already built the parking lot. One commissioner said, ‘We realize we need more parking so we’ll buy up more land for it.’ That’s more budget creep. I just don’t get it.”

O'Cain summed up the outcome of the joint session: "The Board of Commissioners and Board of Education fell for a pretty picture."