The board majority did not have to use the Melrose site

Our ANTI friends are constantly trying to re-write history over and over again. They get it wrong. I correct them with documentation. They repeat the same misinformation again even when they know they are wrong. The rewrite here is the one where our ANTI friends try to pretend that Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti are not the ones responsible for the greatest waste of VUSD taxpayer money in history--50 million dollars. This 50 million dollars could have been saved to use for VUSD students if either Jim Gibson or Dr. Stephen Guffanti had allowed the taxpayers of VUSD a chance to purchase the cheap level Kawano site for our third high school.

Our ANTI friends are trying desparately to defend the spendthrift devil may attitude of Gibson and Guffanti to taxpayer money. Blogger JustTheFacts is their greatest defender. Read his posts and my responses below.

For three years while Gibson and Guffanti were saying no no no to the cheap level Kawano site for our third high school every other 50+ acre parcel inside and adjacent to our district was looked at by our VUSD search team with the help of professional real estate folks. There were no other sites except the better Kawano site that neither Gibson or Guffanti would allow VUSD taxpayers to use.

con no more (that's me) said on: February 3, 2010, 2:03 pm
If poor blogger, Just The Facts, would only look for facts in the North County Times archives, he could find them. He has made yet another mistake (intentional?) in his blog at 9:03am.

I will repeat Just the Facts mistake here: "..Hubbard, Wade, Herrera at the time, Wade later replaced by Lilly - refused to consider any alternatives to the 76 / Melrose site and proceeded with several years of litigation"

His key error were the words, "refused to consider any alternatives to the 76 / Melrose site"

Of course the reasonable three trustees, our students in overcrowded high schools had been force to waste better three years looking at other sites.

As Just The Facts should know Melrose was the last 50 plus acre site left in (and just outside) our district. All other sites had been considered. Local Realtor had been consulted. There were NO other sites left once the cheap level 50 plus acre Kawano site was eliminated by Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti's stubborn and expensive opposition to it.

Read this May 2005 nctimes article about the only other 50 plus acre sites in our district and why they had to be eliminated here:

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/05/29/news/inland/vista/22_38_385_28_05.txt

VUSD sees Melrose campus as key project
Saturday, May 28, 2005 10:48 PM PDT

NOTE: the first sentence in the EXACT quote from that article below:

"The long road

Vail said the district seriously considered three other sites before settling on the Melrose property. Those sites included property south of Highway 76 off East Vista Way that didn't work out for environmental reasons; the "Kawano" or "Strawberry Hill" property that failed to generate enough support among school board trustees; and the Lincoln Middle School/Vista City Hall site that fell through because the state wouldn't provide necessary funding.'

Here is another JustTheFacts post on the same subject:

con no more (that's me) said on: February 11, 2010, 3:15 pm

JustTheFacts how far you have fallen. You were the one ANTI who seemed to be reasonable. Yet in the following from your post at 2:11 pm you show that facts are not at all what you are interested in. JustTheFacts knows full well that EVERY 50 plus acre site in this district or even touching this district was considered by the search committee. There were then and still are today NO OTHER SUITABLE SITES that the state of California would approve for VUSD to build a high school on.

The state REJECTED the tiny 17 acre Lincoln Middle Site.
http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/05/29/news/inland/vista/22_38_385_28_05.txt


This is the same tiny Lincoln Middle Site that Dr. Stephen Guffanti mentioned as a third high school site in his embarrassing sour grapes Forum published on January 24, 2010 in this newspaper. In the Guffanti forum, he cannot explain why he did not approve the Kawano property even as he sniffs about how unfair that he lost last November.

http://www.nctimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/article_f2cc26d6-7dfc-5583-8aa2-74d07fd92b74.html


Jim Gibson has never tried to explain. He hopes folks will forget his most costly mistake as VUSD board trustee.

The fifty plus acre site the North Coast Church is currently building on was rejected by the state as VUSD third high school site because it contained two huge underground natural gas supply lines for north county homes.

Another site had to be split in two due to the legally required nature corridor.

JustTheFacts has finally shown his true colors. While not making up facts like his ANTI friends do, he is intentionally leaving out the fact that ALL large 50+ acre parcels of land within the boundaries of VUSD had been extensively looked at.

Each one of these secondary choices cost tens of thousands of dollars for experts to find, research the legal documents, check state regs, etc etc. Each of these expensive processes to eliminate all but the Melrose site could have been avoided had either Gibson or Guffanit allowed the taxpayers to build on the Kawano site.

If JustTheFacts believed in just the facts he would not leave that out of his post. If he cared about taxpayer money, he would condemn the senseless obstructionism of Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti that cost taxpayers a chance to put the third high school on a cheap, level, fully graded, agriculturally zoned piece of land rather than a hilly, zoned for housing (therefore expensive) parcel at the extreme north of the district (Melrose) part of which was not even in our district.

So Just the Facts tell us what other choice of land was there in VUSD? Do you think the real estate professionals that spent two years searching for a better site than Kawano were incompetent?

you wrote:
"it very convenient to ignore that the board never seriously considered another site AFTER they discovered that they would not get 76 / Melrose without a fight"

Knowing that all 50+acre sites had been considered, why JusttheFacts were you disingenuous enough to post above false allegation?

The above statement in red of JustTheFacts seems to be written to intentionally mislead others into believing that the VUSD school board had other 50plus acre options at the end of 2004.