Donation to school garden goes from high to low

A free truckload of soil for a Santa Barbara school’s new vegetable garden should have been something to celebrate. But when officials discovered the donation’s source, it turned into a total bummer.

“We had no idea that a medical marijuana dispensary was in any way connected to a donation of soil for a community garden,” the Santa Barbara County Education Office said in a written statement Wednesday. “We would not have accepted the donation had we known that was the case.”

The founder of Green Well, the month-old, city-permitted, nonprofit marijuana business that made the delivery to El Puente School, said he was trying only to be good neighbor.

“We thought it would be a good fit,” said James Lee, a former business consultant. “We want to be part of the solution, not the problem.”

In January, an AmeriCorps volunteer at the school for troubled students solicited donations for the garden in a local newspaper. Lee responded, telling her explicitly, he said, about his dispensary.

“It didn’t raise any flags,” he said Tuesday.

But school officials said he never mentioned marijuana, stating instead that he represented “a nonprofit that had associations with a landscaping business,” said Wendy Shelton, a spokeswoman for the county education office.

A truck bearing the name of a local landscaping company arrived at the school Tuesday morning -- along with TV cameras.

Lee had sent out a news release about the donation, which included sacks of bat guano and earthworm castings.

On Tuesday, the landscaping company disavowed any connection with Lee, saying an “unauthorized” person had used its truck.

School officials said they would return his dirt.

“We’d rather get soil from reputable soil people,” Shelton said.

As for Lee, he said he would handle future civic-minded efforts differently.

“Schools are sensitive recipients,” he said. “Maybe I should have thought longer and harder about this.”

steve.chawkins@latimes.com