Lawton Public Schools can proceed with security fencing project at Central Middle School

Lawton Public Schools can close a public easement across its Central Middle School property, allowing the district to proceed with plans to install security fencing.

Tuesday’s decision by the City Council also means the city’s revised west Lawton bicycle route into Elmer Thomas Park will use Fort Sill Boulevard and Cache Road.

Council members were reacting to plans by Lawton Public Schools to install security fencing around Central Middle School, Shoemaker Education Center and Lawton High as part of its district-wide plan to upgrade security measures for students and staff. The plan already has started for Central and Lawton High, but hit a snag when the district discovered its city permitting process that completion had to wait until the City of Lawton vacated the public easement between Central and Shoemaker.

Dedicated to the city as a public easement in 2013, the pathway provides access for bike riders using the Elmer Thomas Park Connector as well as LPS buses taking students to school. The buses will continue to use the access point after the fencing is installed; bike riders cannot because the tract no longer would be public property, when the public easement designation goes into effect in 30 days.

Faced with that loss of access, the City of Lawton must identify a new bicycle path into Elmer Thomas Park, said Kameron Good, a city planner. That path is needed to link a designated bike path that comes from west Lawton and across Fort Sill Boulevard to link to paths within Elmer Thomas Park, Good said.

The council’s final choice was the option presented by LPS’ fencing contractor: a $34,500 project that would extend an existing sidewalk along Fort Sill Boulevard north to Cache Road, then add a new sidewalk along the north side of Central Middle School to link to the Fort Sill Connector into the park. The project means building 270 feet of new 10-foot sidewalk and widening 190 feet of existing 5-foot-wide sidewalk to 10 feet.

Good said another decision already has been made in response to a directive from the Oklahoma Department of Transportation: designate a temporary detour route. That route must remain in place until the new designated route is completed, Good said, about ODOT’s directive to continue to provide uninterrupted access to some designated bike lane.

“The LMPO (Lawton Metropolitan Planning Organization) already selected the temporary alternate route,” Good said, of a decision to take the Connector across North Sheridan Road on Northwest Ferris (as it does now), then swing south at Northwest Dearborn Avenue to follow that street to Northwest 6th Street, then back to Elmer Thomas Park.

The route now goes north of Northwest Ferris through the residential neighborhood to reappear on Fort Sill Boulevard.

Mayor Stan Booker said funding for the revised bike trail can come from either the 2019 Capital improvements Program or medical marijuana money, funds set aside from sales taxes generated by the sales of medical marijuana and remitted to the City of Lawton. Council members unanimously accepted the recommendation made by Ward 4 Councilman George Gill: use the medical marijuana money.

City officials did not say when the sidewalk work would begin or when the temporary detour route would be marked.