Each owner was paid $500 for the 12-month option.
AUBURN – The School Committee will discuss the Lake Street option agreements again.
Members will decide Wednesday night whether they want to back out of an option to buy a Holly Street property owned by Arthur Barron. It is one of four agreements that school officials have with property owners in the Lake Street neighborhood.
Obtained over the past year, the agreements give Auburn the right to buy the land so it can expand Lake Street Elementary School, an aging, overcrowded neighborhood school set on less than two acres of land. But the options became controversial when the state said in October it would not support the expansion and school officials announced they would instead build a school elsewhere in the neighborhood.
Some area residents say the school system should retain the purchase options so Auburn will be able to buy the land if officials return to the expansion plan.
Others argue that the school system should immediately drop out of the agreements so the land owners can sell their properties to others.
Each owner was paid $500 for the 12-month option. They keep the money if Auburn ends the agreement.
Two weeks ago, during a meeting packed with landowners, parents and area residents, committee members voted to back out of the option agreement the board held on the Lalleman property. The committee kept four other options.
School system business manager Jude Cyr said the Barron family also wants to sell its property, a tenth-of-an-acre piece of land with a home.
Like the Lalleman family, the Barrons have asked Auburn to back out of the option agreement.
The meeting begins at 7 p.m. and at the Chamberlain Building.
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