Old Criglersville school good polling place

Bradford pear trees frame the front door of the old Criglersville Elementary School. Soon, they will burst forth with hundreds of beautiful white blooms, signaling the arrival of spring.

But while the literal winter will fade, a figurative winter of official neglect still freezes out efforts by the community to keep vital the old, much-loved school. First, over numerous parent protests, school officials decided in 2003 to close the school, citing the expense of keeping the 80-student kindergarten through fifth grade facility open.

In 2006, county officials nixed popular monthly community open house events there that featured live music and various family activities. The following year, they blocked use of a cottage on the property that had for decades served as the conevenient polling place for the Criglersville precinct.

Despite being locked out of the buildings on the public property, many Madison County residents continue to use the Criglersville site’s playground and excellent athletic field, which is the only public athletic field in the northern end of the county.

Last year, county officials listed the property for sale on-line, but only after a community outcry over officials’ plan to sell it to an adjacent church for $100,000. (The 5.7-acre riverside site has been assessed at around $850,000.)

While action on the Criglersville site remains mostly snowbound (big purchase offers on it have yet to materialize), there are two new hopeful signs of a thaw. We are encouraged that the county’s board of supervisors last month discussed seeking federal stimulus money to install a new septic system for the old Criglersville Elementary School. (Previously, the system’s price tag has been put at around $250,000.) Even though getting the money seems slim, it’s encouraging to hear that county officials are at least continuing -- somewaht -- to listen to the many folks in the community who value the site and rightly recognize it as a vital Criglersville-Syria-Etlan hub.

We are also encouraged by a request by the Madison County Electoral Board to again let voters use one of the two white, wood-frame cottages on the site as the polling place for the Criglersville precinct. Todd’s Garage in Banco is a much less desirable voting site. In recent elections cars from voters attempting to pull in to Todd’s have backed up onto busy Route 231, creating a driving hazard and tying up deputies pressed into traffic control.

Todd's has a parking area that is more than adequate for the wonderful community business, but totally inadequate for use as polling place. The old Criglersville school site on the other hand, has a huge parking lot with plenty of space for voters.

Electoral board members are waiting to hear from supervisors on whether the old school site can be restored as a polling place. We encourage supervisors to say yes. We can’t imagine one-day toilet use by two or three polling workers would overwhelm the Criglersville site’s septic system. But even if renting a portable toilet was deemed necessary, it would still be preferable to using the auto repair shop in Banco.

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