Three Midland residents are suing Midland ISD and the City of Midland over the school district’s plan to use the site of a popular local golf course for a new high school.
Lynda Jackson, Jonathan Rojo and Kristi Alldredge filed the lawsuit Monday, alleging the plan violates a decades-old city zoning rule that doesn’t allow the Ranchland Hills Golf Club property to be used for anything other than a country club.
The lawsuit also claims city officials have “bypassed due process and permitting procedures” by not pursuing a zoning change for the property.
“Many of the residents of the neighboring properties, including plaintiffs, purchased their properties due to the property’s perennial use as a golf course,” the lawsuit reads.
The school district’s plan has been in the works since 2019, when MISD purchased the golf course property with the stated goal of building a new high school there to address the area’s booming student population. The idea began to move forward in earnest when Midland voters approved a historic $1.4 billion bond package that was supported by some of the oil-rich region’s top energy company executives.
In recent months, avid golfers and fans of Ranchland Hills have urged local officials to abandon the plan and keep the golf course open, describing it as a recreational asset and important green space for the community.
But the school district hasn’t budged.
As the Midland Reporter-Telegram has reported, the district’s school board recently approved a deal to harvest the course’s golf greens and sell them to nearby Reeves County, a project that was set to begin on Monday.
“The district stands firm in its belief that it not only is within its legal right, but also has a responsibility to parents and taxpayers, to proceed with the voter-approved construction of the Bond 2023 projects as communicated to the public when the property was purchased in 2019 and throughout the bond,” MISD said in a statement. “We look forward to the upcoming groundbreakings for the new campuses that will take place in the summer of 2025 and welcoming students and staff in 2028.”
Monday’s lawsuit came after the golf club’s supporters began explicitly threatening legal action over the plan.
At a city council meeting last week, those supporters told city officials they had been speaking with attorneys and warned they were prepared to sue if city officials did not intervene to block the plan. (None of the three plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit spoke about the issue at that September 24 meeting.)
Some fans of the club have insisted they aren’t opposed to the district building a new school, but simply want it built somewhere else.
“I’ve got two high school kids playing in a high school golf tournament at Ranchland,” local resident Gary Wilson told the council. “We’re not anti-school.”
An attorney for the plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit declined Marfa Public Radio’s request for further comment on the case.
A spokesperson for the city also declined to comment on the lawsuit, though Midland Mayor Lori Blong had in recent days urged those involved in the dispute to resolve the matter outside of court.
In a statement last Wednesday where she described the city as “not a party to this issue,” Blong wrote that “if there is desire by others to come to the table and avoid further division, city leaders will be there to be part of the solution.”
The school district pushed back on that suggestion, saying in a statement to local TV news station KOSA that it was “surprised to learn of the suggested mediation” and maintaining it had “solid legal grounds to continue” with the project.
