The Greene County School District will continue to use the fairgrounds to store their buses for the upcoming school year.

Superintendent Tim Christensen says the School Board approved a one-year lease agreement with the Greene County Fair Board at their June meeting for $17,500, with the agreement to expire on June 30, 2017. Another part of the agreement is a renewal option by December 1st for the following year. Fair Board President Bob Allen says they are willing to work with the district as they look at other possible options.

“We’ve had a really good relationship with the school for many years, dating back into the early 1990’s and we still have a good relationship today. By this fall, we’ll know for sure whether or not that they’re going to continue to lease the space or not and if they’re not then we have to determine on what we’re going to do with our building space that we have out there.”

Christensen points out that they are looking to acquire the former National Guard Armory building that’s near the fairgrounds and is owned by the county. He talks about why they are considering that facility.

“A fenced in facility is something that’s positive, the ability to get all the vehicles inside. I think one (of the other) positives is we warm the buses up and everything so being on the edge of town (in Jefferson), we’re not going to disturb the public would be another positive, if it all works out.”

Christensen adds that he is in discussion with the county to acquire the facility before December. Meanwhile, County Engineer Wade Weiss has been looking into what it would cost the county to build a new facility by their existing secondary roads shop to store the materials that are currently at the armory building.