ANTIs say: Kawano property value of one million was a low ball offer.

The following is part of a back and forth set of comments following an article in North County Times saying that the school board decided not to combine Olive and Washington at this time. The 69 comments following the article are a microcosm of the the battles here in VUSD from both sides. They say little about the proposed school merge but a lot about the kind of politics we have here. You can read all the comments here: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_2747ca42-c442-59bb-bd3a-2ebf5485020a.html?mode=comments

The cheap level Kawano property at Strawberry Hill was appraised at 1 million dollars by a professional real estate appraiser. There is a legal process for this. Sometimes the land owner disputes the appraisal and takes it to court. There also are no bids whatsoever. It is not a negotiation. It is not like buying a house where you negotiate with the seller. The price is fixed in a fair legal manner with independent appraisers.

But Kawano was AGRICULTURAL land whereas the Melrose property was zoned for housing making it much more expensive. Land zoned agricultural is far cheaper than land zoned for single family homes.

The cheap level fully graded one million dollar Kawano property as agricultural land would never have been valued at the 18 million the taxpayers were forced to pay for the secondary site at Melrose when the primary site was denied them by Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti.

ANTIs say they are proud that Gibson and Guffanti did not use eminent domain
You say you are proud that Gibson and Guffanti did not give the needed support for eminent domain at Kawano but you say nothing about eminent domain at Melrose that took four votes--Jim Gibson being the fourth.

In 2002 the taxpayers had a chance at cheap land and immediate construction of a dual magnet high school projected to cost between 49 and 52 million dollars. Gibson and Guffanti said no. Now seven years later the dual magnet high school costs 100 million and is still not done.

Jim Gibson made the decision to run the anti cheap level Kawano high school campaign "stop the 10,000 car mega high school" Now he has to run on his record in 2010 which includes that terrible costly decision.