By Mike Barnhardt
Enterprise Record

County commissioners on Monday voted 3-2 to begin the process to sell some 39 acres the county owns off US 158 in the Smith Grove community – land that was originally purchased for a second high school.
Commissioners Ken White and Richard Poindexter voted against declaring the property as surplus. Chair Carl Humphrey, Vice Chair Robert Wisecarver and Mark Jones voted for the sale.
The land, referred to as the Allen Farm, was originally more than 100 acres, but the county made a swap to get land adjacent to North Davie Middle School. County voters decided against paying for a project for a second high school on the Allen site, and against a satellite campus for Davie High School on the North Davie site on Farmington Road.
“I don’t think we need to hold onto that property any longer,” Jones said last month. While it was considered a possible site for another elementary school, he said a study paid for by the schools shows a decline in the elementary population, especially in eastern Davie.
“If we need an elementary school in the future … there’s no crystal ball saying it should be there. I don’t believe the county should inventory large tracts of property and take commercial property off the tax list.”
But the county earlier this year had done that, and Jones said …