Conflict arises over old school

ICS Head Start seems to have been left out of the loop on a recent city agenda item concerning the old Sims School campus on West Valley Street.

Holly Springs, under the Kelvin Buck administration, became owner of the property after the Holly Springs School District built a new middle

Board school behind the Primary School on South Maury Street several years ago.

ICS has occupied the campus since July 2020 after leasing it from the City of Holly Springs with plans to buy it.

Mayor Sharon Gipson placed a motion on the March 16 agenda of the meeting of the mayor and board of aldermen to reclaim the Sims seventh and eighth grade classroom building to renovate for use of a library and resource center in honor of the late U.S. Senator Hiram Revels. She proposed to authorize expenditure of $1 million in American Rescue Act Plan funds to renovate the structure, which once served as a Rosenwald School then as a high school and intermediate school.

Gipson promoted her idea. “We want to protect our history and move the city regarding to our history,” she said. “It would not be just a library.”

She said the facility would be equipped with broadband and serve as a business incubator and available for community service projects.

“Isn’t ICS in the process of buying the property?” asked alderman Dexter Shipp.

Gipson said there was some activity from the board about the value of the property and who owned it.

Eloise McClinton, executive director of the Institute for Community Services, and Fannie Lampley with ICS were by happenstance present at the meeting.

“I didn’t know of this until I got to the meeting,” McClinton said. “We were preparing to purchase the land and found the city does not have a clear title or whether the CME Church has title.”

The deed has a reverter clause, she said, which means the city does not have the title to the property.

Gipson interrupted.

“It’s not proper to discuss this due to potential litigation,” the mayor said. “Right now there is litigation around the property. Your attorney reached out to us.”

“We should not be paying rent then,” McClinton said.

The board attorney called for an executive session if the discussion went any further.

Ward 1 alderman Bernita Fountain asked how many employees ICS has.

McClinton said ICS has 900 employees overall with 85 here in Holly Springs at the Central Office.

There are 200 children at the Marjean Taylor Myatt Head Start Center adjacent to the Sims school property and at the ICS Complex, she said.

“We have put heat and air in the facility,” McClinton said. “We have put in almost a million to refurbish the facility including a drive way, paving, walls, flooring, fencing and security. We have done quite an extensive amount of work at the facility. We have agreements with the previous administration to purchase the facility.”

Ward 4 alderman Patricia Merriweather asked if the agreement was made under Mayor Kevin Buck’s administration.

“Absolutely,” said Ward 1 alderman Bernita Fountain. “I asked her to remain in the meeting. We want to keep ICS in Holly Springs. And the Myatt Head Start Center is next door. See how important it is this center stays in Holly Springs.”

Gipson said ICS is not using the former seventh and eighth grade building on the campus.

The building is located at the front of the campus and facing West Valley Avenue.

“I want to save it as well. I have no desire to terminate the lease or remove ICS from the facility. It’s important to rehabilitate and reclaim it and make it a state-of-the-art facility,” Gipson said.

“We were planning to purchase and refurbish the building as well,” McClinton said.

“You are going to have all of it,” Fountain said, “and if we want to use the gym we can rent it from you.”

McClinton and Lampley left the meeting without further remarks.

In a separate interview, McClinton said ICS has a signed contract with the city to purchase the property done during the Kevin Buck administration.

“I have the contract in hand and I was waiting for clearance from the Office of Head Start,” she said. “The Office of Head Start did approve the contract. When I started making final approval for ICS in Nov. 2021, I went to the mayor and she said she didn’t want to sell the property. She said she would let me know.”

McClinton said she already had authorization from the Office of Head Start to purchase the property for $950,000, but had to get full clearance from the Office of Head Start in order to buy the property. The deed she sent to the Office of Head Start showed the Methodist Church as owner.

“I found a reverter clause in the deed that indicates if the property is not used as an educational facility, it reverts back to the original owner, the CME Church,” she said.

She said she came to the March 15 board meeting to sign in for the three-minute public comment part of the meeting because ICS was not on the agenda.

“I came to see who is the actual owner of the property,” she said.

She said the attorney for ICS has sent the city a letter saying ICS needs a clear title and that ICS will stop paying rent and put the rent in a trust until ICS finds out who the property owner is. ICS is moving forward on purchase of the property.

Russell Johnson said the first school on the property was a Rosenwald School built in 1953 with Fred Moore as principal. Then in 1958 the school was named after principal W.T. Sims. The Sims School was used as a high school until desegregation. Later the campus housed the intermediate school until the district built a new one on South Maury Street behind the Primary School.