The William S. Hart Union High School District is holding a special Governing Board meeting on Wednesday November 18, 2009. This appears to be “Hail Mary” pass to the Santa Clarita Valley Facilities Foundation to ram through a decision on site selection for the proposed Castaic High School before the new board members are sworn in.

That’s bull-crap!

The Wednesday Hart District special Governing Board meeting has been designed to cut out those that matter most; students, parents and taxpayers. Shame on the school board for holding this meeting at 5:00 PM precisely when most folks are just getting off of work; it shows a complete lack of respect towards the community.

The students, parents and taxpayers in the Hart district must not allow this to happen. There needs to be a show of strength at this meeting or the community is going to potentially get screwed over again by this duplicitous school board.

There are three sites that the are going to be considered at the Wednesday special Governing Board meeting; the Green Valley Ranch, the Hasley/Sloan, and the Romero Canyon sites. Here is a blunt summary of each of the sites:    

• Green Valley Ranch- A property in the southern part of Castaic located adjacent to the community of Val Verde along Del Valle Road  

1.  It’s near the Chiquita Canyon land fill……A DUMP!
2. This site is within the aerial plume of the land fill; odors and gases from the land fill may permeate this school site.
3. Val Verde residents are against this site for a school.

• 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.

I’m not going to ask a lot of obvious or inane questions as to which site is the most viable. Rather, I am going to take a definitive stance and actually support one proposed site over the others.

It does not take an advanced degree in geology or science to realize that the only site out of the three being proposed that is most suitable for a school is Romero Canyon.

Having gone out into the Castaic area and walked the various proposed sites it is clear to me that the Romero Canyon site is the only site that could possibly be chosen on Wednesday night. It is the only site that is the safest, most feasible, and the one site that will bring a high school to Castaic the quickest.

However, the PowerPoint presentation that the Hart School Board will be using on Wednesday night raises some serious questions as to the validity of the data being presented. The information in the presentation appears to stack the deck in favor of the Hasley/Sloan site owned by the Santa Clarita Valley Facilities Foundation.

Gee, should we be surprised by this?

The PowerPoint information on the Hasley/Sloan site does not lineup with what the State of California geology maps indicate for that piece of property. Having personally looked at the State information it shows much of the Hasley/Sloan property having soils liquefaction and flood control issues that would require an expensive and lengthy fix.

The other interesting thing is that the data supplied for the Romero Canyon property appears to have been changed to increase the site costs dramatically from what was originally submitted. If you read some of the fine print it looks like “District Engineers” made arbitrary changes to data supplied by the developer of the Romero Canyon site.    

This makes me wonder if the data is being manipulated in order to get a specific result which is all the more reason to make sure that this decision is delayed until the new school board members are sworn in next month.

On November 3, 2009 Hart District voters went to the ballot box and chose two new board members; Bob Jensen and Joe Messina. These new board members will be responsible, along with the incumbent members, for getting the proposed Castaic High School built.

This decision will have a profound and lasting impact on all the Hart School District families and should be taken more seriously. It seems only fair and responsible to allow those new board members to weigh in on this site selection decision. It is very questionable that out going board members would be making a $120 million dollar decision!!

The outcome of this meeting will be in direct relation to the turnout on Wednesday evening. If there is a small turnout then the community will be disappointed with the outcome.

On the other hand, if enough people turn up and overwhelm the meeting with attendance then there is a very good chance that this decision will be set aside for the new board members to weigh in on. That would be the right thing to do and it will be up to residents to make it happen by showing up and telling these elected officials what you want!

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.