The William S. Hart Union High School District held a special Governing Board meeting on Wednesday November 18, 2009. By all appearances the board was posed to make a decision on site selection for the proposed Castaic High School. That didn’t happen! Instead the School Board wimped out and dropped one of the three sites that was being considered. The Green Valley site, the one that was within the odor plume of the Chiquita Canyon Dump, is out of the running. Gee, that wasn’t hard!

The Romero Canyon and the Hasley/Sloan sites are the two sites left in this incredibly painful and drawn-out selection process. Now the school board, in their infinite wisdom, wants to waste tax payer money on producing an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for each of these two properties at a cost of more than $125,000 per report before the decide on one of them.

These reports will take as long as 18 months to produce, in a best case scenario, before there is more debate on which site to select. This means that there will not be a new high school in Castaic for many more years.

The Hart School Board lacked the backbone to make a tough decision in front of an overflow crowd that showed up at the Wednesday night meeting. The chatter around town leading up to this meeting was that the board members were going to chose Hasley/Sloan but then chicken-out in the face of angry residents from the district.

What a travesty and a fiasco this entire process has turned into.

The district needs leadership on site selection for the proposed high school in Castaic and after witnessing last week’s school board meeting certainly has not gotten any from the Hart School Superintendant Jamie Castellanos. He appeared to be in way over his head at that meeting and did not seem to show strong leadership skills.

Wednesday night’s decision needs to be revisited. Hopefully when the new board members are sworn in next month they can affect some kind of change and get this process back on the fast track.

There is no reason for the Hart School Board to dance around this issue nor should it be kowtowing to the Santa Clarita Valley Facilities Foundation. The simple fact is that there now are two potential sites for the proposed high school and the school district should pick the one that will afford the residents of Castaic the largest and safest site for which a school can be built on the quickest.

Here are the two sites again for your review:

• Hasley/Sloan- A site in Hasley Canyon at the northeastern corner of Sloan Canyon Road and Hasley Canyon Road   
  1. This property was examined previously and rejected!
  2. There have been questions raised as to whether there are soil “liquefaction” issues with this site. “Liquefaction is a phenomenon in which the strength and stiffness of a soil is reduced by earthquake shaking and have been responsible for tremendous amounts of damage in historical earthquakes around the world.” The State Geology Map clearly shows Liquefaction/collapsible soils for this site.
  3. It currently only has one entry point which will require an access bridge to built and a number of experts have apparently claimed it is cost prohibitive to create a second entry which is required for a school site
  4. A flood control channel must be built which will require permits from the L.A. County Flood Control, the Army Corps of Engineers, and the California Department of Fish and Game. All of which could take as long as 5 years to get those permits.
  5. There is apparently no water or sanitation “will serve” letters on this property and no tentative track map.
  6. And there is a plant called the Beavertail Cactus which appears to be on the endangered species watch list and will require some kind of mitigation.
  7. It has apparently been owned by the SCV Facilities Foundation since 2003.

• Romero Canyon Site- A site in the north portion of Castaic approximately one mile west of the termination of Parker Road

1.  
   1. The site has an initial approval as a high school site from the state Dept. of Education;
   2. The parcel is in the path of future development (meaning homes are currently not there, but will be);
   3. The parcel is large enough to house a high school as well as other administrative buildings;
   4. The high school will finish the community’s road circulation plans; and
   5. Many of the permits are in process or are ready to be pulled making the Romero Canyon site the one location that can come on line the quickest for this under served community.
   6. The property owner is willing to grade the site.

Oaky, as a parent which site do you believe is suitable for a school? Honestly, if you had a child that is school age which one of these two sites would you pick based on the information laid out above.

There is no choice other than the Romero Canyon property as far as I am concerned. This is the property that will yield a high school safely and quickly. Yet the ridiculous politics of this valley and the facilities foundation are hampering some members of the school board from actually representing the best interests of students, parents and taxpaying residents.

We need decisive leadership on this issue not more delays and wasted taxpayer money.

Stop this madness; select one site and do one EIR!

Dave Bossert- Commentary

Dave Bossert is a community volunteer who serves on a number of boards and councils. His commentaries represent his own opinions and not necessarily the views of any organization he may be affiliated with or those of the West Ranch Beacon.