In the first public confirmation of a long-rumored new Eastside fast food restaurant, the Wilkes County Board of Education discussed Monday night how they could grant an easement to Ronnie Huffman so he could build a combination Taco Bell/KFC on the former Ansley property next to CVS on East Robert Toombs Avenue.

Huffman told the Board at Monday’s regular December meeting that the franchise said his property must have a rear exit, so if he failed to get an easement from the Board by January 15, the deal would fall through.

The Board members seemed favorably inclined toward granting the easement, but wanted to protect the nearby Washington-Wilkes Primary School driveway from any increase in traffic.

The property that Huffman needs an easement across is a narrow, Lshaped strip that borders the west side and rear of the former Ansley property on East Robert Toombs. The west side borders the primary school driveway, and Huffman assured board members that he did not desire access to the school driveway. He only needed an easement across the 45-foot strip at the rear of the school-board-owned property, so that the restaurant would be accessible from the rear.

The customer entrance and exit to the Taco Bell/KFC would be on East Robert Toombs, Huffman said, so the rear exit would get little traffic. He said he was amenable to any kind of road closure or rerouting the Board proposed to keep restaurant traffic from conflicting with the school driveway.

Board members, led by vice chairman Bob Guin, discussed what they would need to do to grant the easement, or sell the strip of land in question to Huffman entirely. “I can’t see us ever needing that land,” several members said.

They decided to have the parcel surveyed and appraised immediately so that they would be able to give Huffman a price for either the easement or outright purchase of the property in question, and to do so before their next regular meeting on January 9.

In a move that Superintendent Joyce Williams said she expected would be controversial, she passed out a “proposed, tentative” schedule for the next school year.

The proposed schedule, which is based on McDuffie County’s schedule, would have school starting July 28, with a week-long “Fall holiday.” The school year would end May 18. Several board members took issue with aspects of the proposed calendar, and said that they were already hearing about it from both parents and teachers.

“This is just a proposal,” Williams said. “We’ll come back in January and discuss it with the principals.”

Williams also returned to the subject of dark parking lots at various schools, a concern which board member Steve Albertson had raised at a recent meeting. She reported that facilities manager Sheldon West and city electrician Mike Hardy had surveyed all four campuses, and had come up with 23-25 places that needed security lights. The city, she said, would furnish the lights for $375 a month, which she had authorized.

In other action, the board gave permission for the high school to host a visit by BRAG, the Bike Race Across Georgia, in June. Board members reviewed a list of BRAG site requirements. “Some of the items we have in place,” Williams said, “but others we’ll have to coordinate with others to arrange.”

Guin pointed out that the high school had handled the previous BRAG visit well.

The board also voted permission for six primary school teachers to attend a National Reading Association meeting in Chicago, and passed the emergency expenditure of $13,158.75 for a new boiler to replace one in the primary school that is leaking and about to fail.

Board members gave final approval to 2006 Board of Education meeting dates as proposed at last month’s meeting. As in years past, board meetings will be on the third Monday evening except for January and February, when meetings will be on the second Monday evening due to holiday conflicts.

Final approval of the policy manual change concerning an employee dress code came up for a vote, but it did not pass as Albertson and Guin voted against the change.

Finally, the board set a date for a construction workshop to work out the details involved in locating a “construction manager-at-risk” to oversee the new school complex. They set the time for the workshop as 5:30 p.m. January 9, just prior to the next scheduled board meeting.