By Evan Smith
ShorelineAreaNews Politics Writer
The Shoreline School District has told the Shoreline Historical Museum that it will have to leave the Ronald School Building that the Museum has occupied for 35 years.
Museum officials tell me that they don’t know when they will need to leave or where they will go.
Museum Director Vicki Stiles told me last week that the School District has offered the Museum temporary storage space for its collections at the former Sunset School, a building that is scheduled to be torn down, with the land to be developed into a Shoreline City park.
Stiles said that the Museum is searching for a new site.
Shoreline School Public Information Officer Craig Degginger recently wrote in the Richmond Beach Community News that the School District “will now return to its original plan of including the historic Ronald School building as part of a new Shorewood High School.”
The School District said last year that the Museum would have to leave the site, which would be incorporated into a rebuilt Shorewood High School. This led to opposition to a February bond issue to rebuild both Shorewood and Shorecrest high schools.
Then, the School District and the Museum board announced an “agreement in principal” under which the School District would allow the Museum to keep the building and move it to a nearby site in exchange for the Museum’s supporting the bond issue, The bond issue passed with a 62 percent “yes” vote, 426 votes more than the 60 percent needed.
The Museum hoped to buy land east of the Museum parking lot, land that has now been sold to a different buyer.
Degginger’s news release said, “Despite repeated efforts over the past five months, the Shoreline School District and the Shoreline Historical Museum, currently housed in the Ronald School, have not been able to finalize the agreement to relocate the building to an adjacent site,” adding that the District would return to its earlier plan to “incorporate” the Ronald building into the Shorewood design, ”honoring, preserving and restoring the original school building, while bringing the unreinforced brick masonry building up to code and making it a safe structure for student use.
“After both the Museum board and the Shoreline School Board approved the ‘Agreement in Principle’ in January, and voters approved the February 9, 2010, bond measure to replace both Shorewood and Shorecrest High Schools, the District directed the Bassetti Architects to develop a new architectural design for the Shorewood that did not incorporate the Ronald School into the project, assuming that the building would be moved from the property. Since that time Bassetti staff has worked on the new plan exclusively.
“Representatives from the Museum and the School District have met several times since the February election to discuss the agreement to move the Ronald School.
“In a surprise move on June 1, the Museum Board legally appealed the District’s Determination of Non-Significance (DNS) under the State Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process related to relocating the Ronald School building to an adjacent site.
“As efforts to purchase the necessary adjacent property by the Museum stalled, July 1 was determined by the District to be the last possible date to direct the architects to return to the pre-February 2010 design plans, which incorporated the Ronald School into the Shorewood design.
“’Any further delay in this decision will most certainly disrupt the design, construction timeline, and threatens the significant state funding of approximately $17 million associated with the replacement of Shorewood High School,’ said Superintendent Sue Walker.
“Consistent with the District’s previous communications on the subject, the District clarified three items that needed to be in place by July 1 in order for the District to know there is a good faith effort and/or the ability on the part of the Museum to execute the ‘Agreement in Principle’ reached
in January. The three items were:
1. A signed purchase agreement on a piece of property adjacent to the Shorewood site.
2. A signed legal agreement with the District stipulating all of the necessary conditions to be met outlined in the ‘Agreement in Principle’ and discussed at the meeting.
3. A written withdrawal of the SEPA appeal“
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