WDXE news has learned that the Lawrenceburg City Commission knew about plans to tear down historic Alumni Memorial Field some eight months before the demolition began.
In a tape of the regular city commission meeting from May 19th, 2005, Emergency Mangement Director Joe Baxter tells the commissioners of the plan. The tape of a portion of the meeting was broadcast on WDXE newscasts on Monday and Tuesday January 30 and 31.
Baxter told, the commission, all of whom where in attendence, that in order to get the easement for flood control across the field, the school board wanted the bleachers torn down.
The bleachers were destroyed on January 20th promting a public outcry from many who considered the field to be a landmark.
Commissioner Keith Durham called the demolition of the bleachers “appalling”. Commissioner Tim Dickey said that he didn’t support the tearing down of the bleachers “worth a darn”, and Mayor Allen Chapman said “someone will be held responsible for tearing down the bleachers.”
The school board voted unanimously to go along with the deal with the city, but the city commission was never asked to vote on the issue. The city paid the county ten dollars for the easement, but agreed to tear down the bleachers, put up a new fence, return the field to playable condition and landscape the hillside.
Commissioner Larry Morrow was not in office at the time Baxter told the commission of the plans to tear down the bleachers.