Oct 19 2009

Fight to Save High School Not Over Yet
Despite DISD vote, alumni of Adamson take case to city
By Josh Hixson
Staff Writer

The Adamson High School alumni group’s fight to save their decades-old alma mater is starting to look a lot like a lost cause.
Last month, the Dallas Independent School District board of trustees voted to oppose the alumni group’s proposal to give the school historic landmark status. On the surface, the board’s vote appears to be the death knell for the alumni group’s fight.


However, the board’s vote can’t stop the group from seeking and obtaining landmark status from the city’s Landmark Commission. If the Landmark Commission’s recommendation were then passed by the City Plan Commission, the City Council would be left to decide between saving the historic building or siding with the school board and allowing it to be demolished.


DISD already plans to build a new Adamson High School across the street with funds from the most recent bond program; being forced to keep the old building intact would seriously undermine the school board’s authority.


Glen Straus knows that the alumni group’s odds aren’t good, but he says all they need is a fighting chance.
“I’d say our chances are 50-50. No better than 50-50,” the 1959 graduate of Adamson said. “We will win almost assuredly in front of the Landmark Commission ... They are all pro-building preservation people. Then it moves up to planning and zoning.”
Straus said the alumni group had a meeting last week with an unnamed city plan commission member who indicated the commission would likely pass their bid for landmark status.


“He says that there will be two or three that vote against us, but the rest will vote for us,” Straus said.
City Councilwoman Delia Jasso, whose district contains Adamson, said she supported the school board’s decision, but she declined to indicate which way she would vote if the option to give the building landmark status came before the council.


“[The school board] wanted to take advantage of the low rates on labor and materials right now. Landmark status could drag all the way up to two years,” Jasso said. “They didn’t have the two years to spend, and I understand that. So, for them it was really a business decision. ... However, my hope would have been that we could have preserved parts of it and made the rest what the parents and children wanted.”


Straus said the Landmark Commission could meet as early as this month to decide the building’s fate.
E-mail josh.hixson@peoplenewspapers.com
 

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Former students fight to save historic school

 

© 2009 Adamson Alumni Association