To the editor:

Your April 10 article concerned Cordley School (among others) as being “access-deficient.” Of course, this comes as no surprise to District 497 administrators. They and (five of seven current) board members knew of those and many additional deficiencies, because they were talked about in neighborhood “fact-finding” meetings two years ago!

These “deficiencies” were known BEFORE retaining the two-story, 100-plus-year-old Cordley, rather than modern, ground-level Centennial, whose neighborhood had several times as many students as Cordley’s, primarily because 95 percent of the Cordley neighborhood is zoned for student-rental housing.

Because of Centennial’s closing, several families have left the (single family-zoned) Centennial Neighborhood. Those houses have since turned into rentals for three (or more) unrelated renters, making the school-less neighborhood even less desirable for families with children. Lawrence’s flawed zoning ordinance is the primary culprit responsible for the demise of central Lawrence neighborhoods, however, and, unless addressed, will eventually become a devastating crisis for all Lawrence neighborhoods and taxpayers.

Neither 497 administrators nor the board has satisfactorily explained why Centennial was closed instead of Cordley, which is a two-story, 100-year-old building loaded with lead paint (hurriedly covered), asbestos, poor egress, insufficient parking, a postage stamp-size playground and other problems too numerous to list.

The best solution is to re-open Centennial and close Cordley. Centennial will pass current inspection problems, saving taxpayers millions in future bond requests that will be necessary to maintain hopelessly undesirable Cordley.

Bob Blank,

Lawrence