Daniel Smith says officials understate the current capacity of the BHS campus.
A Bainbridge Island resident has filed a legal appeal that could jeopardize more than 10 percent of the budget for the Bainbridge High School renovation, the school district said Wednesday.
Filed by Daniel Smith to the state Growth Management Hearings Board last month, the appeal challenges the city’s comprehensive plan update and associated school facilities plans.
If successful, it could prevent the district from using about $2 million in impact fees for the $20.855 million high school renovation, set to begin in June.
“Daniel Smith is determined to undercut millions of dollars of valid funding to schools,” said school board president Bruce Weiland. “This lawsuit is absolutely wrong both legally and morally and we will contest it vigorously.”
Smith, a Grand Avenue resident who has previously challenged the district’s use of impact fees, declined to comment.
Schools can seek funding from impact fees – collected by the city on the school district’s behalf, from new construction projects – to fund capital projects, as long as the money pays for improvements related to increased enrollment.
In his petition to the hearings board, Smith contends that the district is “understating the current capacity of Bainbridge High School,” and that doing so results in “inappropriate cost assumptions, the collection of duplicative impact fees and arguable unwarranted burdens on the citizenry in the form of excess bond debt.”
The petition also says the district has “previously been compensated by most, if not all, the new homes on Bainbridge Island alleged to have caused capacity issues at the high school,” through impact fees collected between 1996 and 2003.
Superintendent Ken Crawford said BHS has clearly run out of space.
“When you have to push kids to an antiquated middle school and teachers no longer have their own spaces to eat lunch or take a break, that argument seems incredulous,” he said, referring to the shift of some high school students to the neighboring Commodore Options building.
Rich Hill, attorney for the school district, said Smith’s challenge isn’t appropriate because impact fees aren’t addressed by the state’s Growth Management Act, the law on which the hearings board must base its decision.
“We’re a little puzzled as to why Mr. Smith chose this route,” Hill said, adding that the appeal won’t hold up the renovation.
Smith’s attorney, Dennis Reynolds, couldn’t be reached for comment.
A pre-hearing conference is scheduled for March 8, and a hearing on the merits of the appeal is scheduled for June 21. A final ruling likely would come in late July.
Like Hill, Crawford said he is confused by Smith’s tactics. He said two previous attempts by Smith to prevent the use of impact fees cost the district about $50,000 in legal fees.
“That’s money that should be spent on learning resources,” Crawford said.
