The Melrose site for the third high school, why VUSD had to have it.

Our ANTI public education friends are trying to desperately find a way around the extra 50 million dollars, that Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti's political games cost the district. Their goal is somehow try to transfer the blame for turning a projected 50 million dollar cost of the third high school into a now 100 million dollar cost. The ANTIs new tactic is to incorrectly say that the three reasonable board members should have looked longer for a better site than Melrose. Of course they know that a better site had been found in 2002 but Gibson and Guffanti prevented the taxpayers from having access to it to build the third high school.

Here is a brief history of what happened, in 2002 after the school bond, Prop O, passed an inexpensive, level and large enough piece of land for a high school was located by the district site search team behind Strawberry Hill.

The three reasonable VUSD school board members were ready to acquire that property in the summer of 2002 and start construction of the third high school immediately. The projected cost at that time was between 50 and 54 million dollars. But they and the taxpayers of our district were stopped by the actions of Jim Gibson and Dr. Stephen Guffanti. State law requried four of five board members to vote to obtain the land. Without one or the other of the Gibson/Guffanti voting block, the land could not be obtained.

The cost of construction at the inferior secondary site at Melrose is now projected to be 100 million dollars. The difference in cost between the two sites is around 50 million dollar of taxpayers money wasted because Jim Gibson and Dr. Guffanti's political games.

Below in blue is my response to the factually and historically incorrect post of ANTI blogger JustTheFacts :
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_2be594d0-151b-5bff-813a-9e03c68254a4.html

JustTheFacts at 3:04pm again misses the point, there were NO OTHER 50 plus acre sites available in the district to be explored.

The lack of other large pieces of vacant land in our VUSD increased the cost of the third high school of nearly FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS over what the cost might have been in 2002 for the cheap level Kawano site. Sadly there were only THREE of four board members who were willing to allow taxpayers to purchase the cheap level Kawano site.

From the summer of 2002 when Jim Gibson and Stephen Guffanti refused to be the state required fourth board member to support the purchase of the cheap level fully graded primary Kawano site (behind Strawberry Hill) until early 2004, all the other large site left in our nearly built out district WERE explored.

This district is not so large that professional Realtors could not find another vacant 50 plus acre site. Perhaps JustTheFacts knows of one besides the three mentioned below that the professional Realtors in town could not find?

None of the three other large sites left could be used. For one reason or another they were unsuitable for a public school.

One had two huge natural gas line supply pipes under it making it ineligible for public schools under state guidelines (but not to built a mega church and its church school.)Another had a wildlife corridor down the middle and the third--Darn, I forgot, what was it? some other huge irresolvable problem which escapes me at the moment.

Each exploration required tens of thousands of dollars of research by well paid professionals. All of those tens of thousands of dollars need not have been spent if Gibson or Guffanti had allowed the district to purchase the Kawano site in 2002.

Besides the cheap level Kawano site made unavailable by the stubbornness of Gibson and Guffanti, the only other 50 plus acre site available in VUSD to build a PUBLIC high school was the Melrose site. Sadly the Melrose site was HILLY and expensive because it was zoned for housing not agriculture as the Kawano site was. The Melrose site had boundary issues as it was only partly inside our district boundary.*

The taxpayers of VUSD were forced into the expensive Melrose choice because the last large cheap agriculturally zoned (therefore cheaper) piece of land was the Kawano Strawberry Hill site. Neither Jim Gibson or Stephen Guffanti would agree to be the LEGALLY required fourth board member to support the purchase. VUSD taxpayers were forced into the far less attractive due to hills and location not to mention far more expensive Melrose site.

For JustTheFacts I will give the web site of the article in the North County Times that tells about the LONG search that the VUSD were forced into when the cheap level Kawano property was denied.
http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/vista/article_bd65ac5c-1c3f-5aea-9827-104240166ec7.html


*Interesting tid bit told to me by a district official about the Melrose site. Origingal agreements 80 or more years ago put the Melrose site entirely of VUSD. The dividing point between was supposed to be the Santa Margarita river. Everything to the south of the river was intended to be in VUSD (there were no good bridges for students to cross so the river made the best dividing point between VUSD and school districts to the north). An unnoticed surveying error eighty years ago accidentally place part of the Melrose site north of our district boundary lines. The entire Melrose site is south of the river so if the surveying had been done correctly there would have been no boundary issues to resolve with this site.