STILLWATER, Okla. — Stillwater City Council voted Monday in a split vote to pass the final reading of an ordinance to rezone property occupied by the Booker T. Washington School to be used for office space.

While that ordinance will take 30 days to go into effect, that doesn’t mean that opposition to plans for the site have subsided or the plans will go unopposed.

The Booker T. Washington School, 619 W. 12th Ave., served area African-American kindergarten through 12th-grade students during segregation. After integration, a nonprofit group paid $1 for the school building, where it housed a Head Start program starting in the late 1960s before eventually selling to the private Primeland Properties in 2007.

Primeland has plans to tear down the school and build a two-story office building for approximately 30 employees. Developers, represented by Frank Lewis, came to terms with some members of the Washington School Reunion Committee, which was headed by Karen Washington and initially opposed the rezoning. That agreement meant that developers would donate $2,000, bricks from the original building and a space on the property for a monument or memorial to be constructed.

However, others still oppose the school’s rezoning and the deal that was struck.

Iris Slade and Judith Young have said previously that while they are fine if the additions to the school are removed to allow for development, they want to see the original brick building preserved and repurposed as something of a community center. Slade and Young spoke out against the move prior to the Council vote Monday.

“I’m fighting for something that needs to be there and needs to stay there,” Slade said.

She added that she felt the deal that was previously struck didn’t accurately reflect the wishes of the 200-plus living alumni of the school. The space, Slade said, would be best used as a community center for events.

“The highest and best use of (this) property ... is from continued usage from public service organizations and nonprofit organizations,” Slade said citing documents from the Independent School District that owned the property previously.

She also said her group didn’t have money to buy the property now but could try to raise it if needed. Another possibility, Slade said, was Oklahoma’s historic building tax credit, which could offset some of the cost of renovating the building to be preserved and used as office space.

“What I’m asking for my community is that the city of Stillwater ... utilize that building,” she said.

Young, who worked at Stillwater’s Head Start program when it was housed in the school, said the building’s significance went beyond the city’s African-American population.

“To me it’s not a black issue. It’s a community issue,” Young said. “I believe there are projects that can be housed in this school that will not fit anywhere else.”

She added that the city shouldn’t rezone areas for companies that didn’t understand the significance of property they wanted to redevelop.

“I understand that you do not have a historical ordinance to preserve buildings, but you have a council that should take it into consideration,” Young said. “I don’t think 20 office buildings ... would be more important to this community than that building if it’s properly used for community service.”

Before councilors could vote on the ordinance to rezone the school, Councilor Cody Scott called for a motion to table the matter to give him time to find out more about the issue from Slade and Young and to consider the options.

“I don’t know if I’ve had enough time on this matter to make a decision tonight, and frankly I’d like to know more about it,” Scott said.

Mayor Nathan Bates pointed out that the matter had already been tabled once to allow developers and the alumni association to come to a deal.

“Your comment was (about) perception,” Scott said to Young and Slade. “And that really stuck out in my mind. At the end of the day, I want to know I did everything I could.”

Scott’s motion required another councilor to second it, and no one did.

The rezoning ordinance was then approved by a 4-1 vote with Scott the lone vote against.

Slade and Young both said previously and Monday that they wanted to petition the decision. That petition requires roughly 825 signatures, according to City Attorney John Dorman, which is a percentage based on the number of voters in the last general election. If a petition drive is successful, the rezoning decision will go to a referendum that could be voted on by any registered Stillwater residents.