Reporter editorial swayed Carswell that ‘it wasn’t done right.’
Lake City taxpayer funds earmarked for gun-violence prevention will not be used to help with an elementary school move this summer after all.
Lex Carswell, the superintendent of Columbia County Schools, said Thursday the Columbia County School District had decided against accepting $30,000 from the City of Lake City’s Mariah Fund to help with the transition of moving students and staff from Niblack Elementary School to Melrose Park Elementary School this summer.
Carswell said the decision to turn down the money, which the Lake City Council unanimously approved giving to the district on Feb. 20, came after the Lake City Reporter called for the schools to return the funds.
“I’ll be honest with you, the editorial you all wrote Saturday morning swayed me a lot, to say it probably wasn’t done right,” Carswell said, adding the district has rescinded the purchase order it had sent to the city for the funds. “I want to do what the community wants to be done with that money.”
OUR OPINION: Carswell’s character shines through in declining funds
Carswell said the change came Wednesday after he talked with Lake City Councilor Chevella Young, who proposed the idea of helping provide funding for the move out of Niblack this summer to make way for the construction of a new, state-of-the-art, two-story school at the site.
Carswell said during that call both sides agreed to “slow down” the idea of using the city funding.
“I told her, I said I loved the idea, I appreciated everything but I just don’t feel good,” he said. “We’re good. We agreed that we’d slow it down.”
Young did not respond to multiple phone calls from the Reporter seeking comment.
The Mariah Fund, where the council decided to take the $30,000 from, was established in this year’s city budget to help with gun violence prevention programming after 12-year-old Mariah Smith was shot and killed by a stray bullet while doing homework on her grandma’s couch last August.
Carswell said there still could be a use for funding at Niblack in the future if they decide to bring it back on an agenda. Young walked the item on the council’s agenda at that meeting as an emergency.
“It was a good thought, a good idea,” he said. “I think we can do something with some type of leadership academy there at Niblack that would be the best interest for what that money was intended for.”
The city also voted to provide $5,000 in funding toward food trucks for volunteers during moving days from Niblack at the end of the school year. Those funds were not coming from the gun-violence prevention program, rather from undesignated public assistance funds.