Editor:

I attended the meeting at the Delchamps Room at the City Municipal Complex on Monday, Feb.1, at 2 p.m., regarding the creation of an independent school system in Fairhope.

At the meeting Ira Harvey, the consultant paid $25,000 to reveal how such a system could be created, and more importantly, how much it would cost, spoke to the committee for about an hour.

Mr. Harvey indicated that the city would have to absorb all of the debt of the schools recently built by the county in the Fairhope area, which it would need to house its own students and teachers.

He explained that children living outside the city limits would have a two-year grace period, in that the City Council or new school board would have to establish within that service area a boundary delineating which children could attend Fairhope schools.

However, the most perplexing thing that Mr. Harvey said was that Fairhope should try and annex adjacent land that is “most valuable and vacant,” and also, that we should avoid annexing areas with “poorer students and students with disabilities.” This last statement could be construed as elitist, and certainly unfair, in terms of equal protection under the United States Constitution.

I see this move to be more about city annexation and less about the education of Fairhope children.

I will vote for the penny tax for the county, but I would never vote for Fairhope to create its own school system as I see it as devisive as it is duplicative.

Fairhope