Fairfax Co. inches closer to demolition of old Clinton Elementary School

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captionElementsArray captionElements captionElementsArray forEach el if el size el style width size width px el style display block Fairfax Co inches closer to demolition of old Clinton Elementary SchoolA Northern Virginia elementary school that hasn t been used in over a decade is now closer to being demolished Clifton Elementary School which sits on both Fairfax County and Town of Clifton property hasn t been open in years It was deemed uninhabitable when it closed but no one did anything with it Fairfax County School Board member Kyle McDaniel declared On Thursday the board voted to amend an existing program so anytime the school board determines a building is uninhabitable it has three years to bring it down There s an polling sheet from still posted on the front door of the building and there s a playground and public garden that McDaniel stated are still sometimes used However when he toured the inside in January he mentioned it s been vandalized there s broken glass all over and the air quality is poor The agenda shift gives Superintendent Michelle Reid time to determine what to do with the property McDaniel announced he and likely his school board colleagues won t encouragement selling the land My hope is that we can bring this kind of attractive nuisance down get it cleaned up perhaps expand several parking McDaniel declared I know the town has a lot of events that I m sure they would appreciate more parking for Clifton Elementary first opened in and by it had just students the smallest enrollment of any Fairfax County elementary school according to a county description of its history There were water quality issues though and the board voted to close it in Local residents filed a lawsuit to keep the school open but Virginia s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the school district and the campus officially closed in June The closing parent Lisa Sherfey noted was upsetting to the society because everybody felt like that school was really special When it closed she commented students attended one of several other schools that had bigger populations It was a really special place and we felt like it was ripped away from us Sherfey commented People are still bitter about it More stories Connolly legacy looms in Virginia s th Congressional District race WTOP tours Lorton landfill being converted into Fairfax County s largest solar array Crunchy teen wellness trend Attempts to eat healthfully in fact full of danger says Va provider But because the property sat empty Sherfey declared she taught her son to drive in the parking lot in front of the school McDaniel stated it s almost exclusively been used as a parking lot since closing Clifton Mayor Tom Peterson who along with city council members sent a memo supporting the procedures change to the school board declared there was once a proposed land swap with Fairfax County s Park Authority but then the park authority backed out of the deal and everybody now is very apprehensive of what is going to become of this property after the tear down Ideally Peterson noted the land would become a park again Next moves though could be complicated In addition to the water quality issues McDaniel explained there are gas challenges A record recommended the space no longer be used as a school An estimate for the utility work was million to million McDaniel stated Putting a heavy use like another elementary school on this site right now is just not financially viable McDaniel explained Regardless of what comes next Peterson is eager for the attainable demolition Teenagers climb on the roof and there have been several break-ins he commented so that s a safety aspect We didn t want this to be too inviting of a target for chosen people in the area Since February according to Fairfax County police input there have been three calls for trespassing one for burglary two for a suspicious person and one for destruction of property Calling the framework change a giant step McDaniel disclosed the board put in place the direction and the only way to undo that is with documented justification and an affirmative vote of the school board to say Because of these reasons we re not going to do it Source