Six Reasons why the Kawano site was better than the Melrose site

Here is a comparison of the two sites, the cheap Kawano site that the thrifty board members favored for building Mission Vista High School and the inferior secondary site that VUSD was forced to take when Gibson and Guffanti refused to support the cheap Kawano site. (California state law required a SUPER majority of four out of five school board trustees for the purchase of the Kawano property.The super majority rule allowed Gibson and Guffanti to block the purchase of the Kawano site)

(1)Kawano was cheap-- one million dollars estimated cost, compared to 18 million for the secondary Melrose site.

(2)Kawano was zoned agricultural making it less expensive land than the zoned for housing Melrose site.

(3)Kawano was level and fully graded so no expensive grading was required. Melrose was hilly and needed millions extra in site preparation and grading that Kawano did not need.

(4)Kawano was inside the boundary of the City of Vista which historically has cooperated with VUSD. The Melrose site was inside Oceanside City limits. The Oceanside City Council zoned the site for housing costing VUSD more. The O'side Council added onerous grading and intersection improvement requirements adding millions more. In fact Oside city council was down right hostile to having VUSD build a high school for the third of their city's students that are inside VUSD boundaries.

(5)The Kawano site purchase would have allowed construction of the third high school to begin in the summer of 2002 and be completed as early as the fall of 2005 instead of beginning five years later in the spring of 2007 at the Melrose site and not being done until the fall of 2010.

(6)Not being able to use the Kawano site cost our VUSD high school students five more years stuck in two terribly overcrowded high schools.