Glendale Unified superintendent: If Sagebrush schools leave, remaining taxpayers will inherit $11.6 million bond debt
In a little more than 100 days, the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization is expected to decide whether the Sagebrush territory in La Cañada Flintridge should be part of the La Cañada Unified School District or remain under Glendale Unified’s jurisdiction.
The committee’s second public hearing as part of its effort to gather information from citizens who support or opposethe transfer was held Wednesday evening at Crescenta Valley High School, marking the 120-day countdown to the committee’s vote.
Similar in format to the first hearing at La Cañada Unified’s headquarters last week, opponents and supporters of the transfer could tell committee members their stance on the matter in 90 seconds or less.
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About 30 people spoke in favor of transferring the 1,000 homes into La Cañada Unified, many of them longtime Sagebrush residents or parents.
Of the 25 people who opposed the transfer, about half were Glendale Unified teachers, principals or school board members.
The principals of Mountain Avenue Elementary, Rosemont Middle School and Crescenta Valley High School touted their schools’ academic, extracurricular and sports programs as reasons why the committee shouldn’t approve the transfer.
The loss in state funding tied to the roughly 350 students who live in the Sagebrush area that Glendale school officials say currently attend Glendale schools would result in a $2.7-million loss to the district per year, Glendale school officials said.
In recent days, they have said the financial loss could lead to teacher layoffs and a potential school closure, but they didn’t issue those warnings to county officials during Wednesday night’s hearing.
Instead, Glendale Supt. Winfred Roberson Jr. told the committee that $11.6 million in bond debt would shift to Glendale Unified’s remaining taxpayers under the territory transfer, resulting in a “violation in trust” to local voters.
The Sagebrush area comprises about 2% of Glendale Unified’s tax base.
However, former La Cañada Unified School Board President Scott Tracy told the committee that Glendale’s remaining taxpayers would pay only $1.10 more per $100,000 assessed value a year, amounting to “no substantial burden to taxpayers,” he said.
Meanwhile, Cheryl Plotkin, Glendale Unified’s interim chief business and financial officer, saidSagebrush property values could increase by 14% if the territory is transferred, according to an October appraisal report by Curtis-Rosenthal Inc., a real-estate appraisal and consulting company with offices in Los Angeles.
Plotkin said four out of five Sagebrush residents who signed the petition seeking the transfer do not have children in either Glendale or La Cañada school districts.
But according to Marilyn Smith, an attorney working pro bono to support the citizens group seeking the transfer, more than 50% of the 724 Sagebrush residents who signed the petition “have children in the schools.”
Smith, who petitioned to transfer the territory in the 1970s, said Glendale Unified officials have created a “campaign of disinformation.”
In a few instances, supporters and opponents argued that losing or gaining the territory would affect the “wholeness” of either the Glendale or La Cañada school district.
Many Glendale Unified employees on Wednesday wore pins stating, “Keep GUSD Whole.”
When he took the microphone, La Cañada High School Principal Ian McFeat argued that the effort to align La Cañada school and city boundaries, in his view, “is seeking to make our city whole, and to make our school district whole.”
Mountain Avenue Elementary parent Annmarie Pesa said that losing the Sagebrush students would harm Glendale Unified. Speaking to transfer supporters, she said: “Don’t break ours to make yours whole.”
Other participants found no reason to oppose the transfer. Floyd Walters pointed out that Sagebrush students make up only 1% of Glendale Unified’s 26,000-student population. “We tend to get lost,” he said, adding, “I don’t understand the big uproar.”
For Sagebrush resident Judith Trumbo, the Sagebrush area “really feels this sense of being divorced from both” Glendale and La Cañada school districts.
Tom Smith, one of three people who petitioned the county to weigh in on the transfer, said the impetus for it now remains the same as past efforts, and part of it is tied to community cohesiveness.
“What makes La Cañada the unique community that it is, is that the heart and soul of our city and our school district are deeply entwined,” he said.
In a show of support for Glendale Unified, four past or current members of the Crescenta Valley Town Council advised the committee to vote against the transfer.
However, Smith reminded committee members that last year Town Council members discussed possibly leaving Glendale Unified to form a smaller school district in La Crescenta “for many of the same reasons that [bring us] here again today,” he said.
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Kelly Corrigan, kelly.corrigan@latimes.com
Twitter: @kellymcorrigan
