EDITORIAL: Yes, demolition for Sanger Avenue school
All right, we admit we’re confused. So is the city attorney’s office. In fact, much of the city is baffled at the continuing legal shenanigans playing out over the old Sanger Avenue School ruins in North Waco.
This week it got stranger. The 10th Court of Appeals last week granted local attorney LaNelle McNamara till Monday to make her case that 74th District Judge Gary Coley erred in failing to stay his demolition order till her appeal could be heard.
But Monday, McNamara, driving force of the Sanger School Foundation, filed a motion that consisted of bits and pieces of her earlier motion. In one passage, she says if the appeals court doesn’t act, the fire-gutted campus will be razed March 11 — even though March 11 is past.
What’s more, McNamara later told veteran Trib city hall reporter J.B. Smith that neither she nor anyone else representing the association had filed a motion that day. Ghosts, maybe?
Our heart goes out to those who cherish memories of the old grade school. McNamara’s crusade in times past, including her hopes of finding a new use for the building, not only touched but invigorated us.
But it’s time to tear it down, especially given its decrepit condition since the October 2008 arson that gutted the 106-year-old building, now propped up with beams. City officials worry that youths or anyone else straying into the property might be injured or killed by collapsing walls.
We examined the fencing erected to keep out vandals and trespassers and found it inadequate, allowing easy access to anyone so determined. City officials say the building may well collapse onto Sanger Avenue, given enough time.
It’s time to savor fleeting memories but banish any and all ghosts to more solid haunts around town. For everyone’s sake, the Sanger Avenue building should come down, lest it endanger the very public it once so nobly served.
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