ORANGE COUNTY PREP WEDNESDAY : New Stadiums: Only Money Matters

This is the story of a football stadium that isn’t there. Some day it may stand on the grounds of Trabuco Hills High School, but no one is busying themselves making plans for the grand opening.

There are surveys and studies to be made. There are projections and growth trends and artists’ renderings to look at. There is input, four year’s worth. Input from the faculty of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District, from the parents living in the school district, from the general community and from the developers who build homes in the community.

There is little doubt that the athletic interests of the district would love another stadium, something school administrators are feeling in tremors of interest and impatience. The district has four high schools that play interscholastic football (El Toro, Laguna Hills, Mission Viejo, Trabuco Hills) and only one stadium.

The stadium is at Mission Viejo High School and is a kind of a time-share property with schools shuttling in and out.

As Barbara Smith, vice principal of Trabuco Hills, diplomatically puts it: “The school’s athletic boosters are very interested in the new stadium. Very interested.”

If the stadium is ever built at Trabuco Hills, it will also be a district stadium, expected to be shared by all four schools.

Much has and will be said about the stadium, but it all comes down to one question: Can they afford it?

“I think there’s definitely a need for the stadium,” said Ann Chlebicki, deputy superintendent of the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. “The recommendation has been made, but we still have to determine if we can pay for it. We’re still studying it.”

If the facility is built, no one is sure how much money will be needed to get the job done because the board hasn’t decided if it wants just a football stadium and track or an entire sports facility, complete with pool. Even if it decides on only building the stadium, there has been no determination on how large a stadium will be built.

“We’re still studying all of that,” Chlebicki said.

The problem with sharing a single district stadium isn’t so much making space for the four schools. They play on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights and Trabuco Hills will play two of its four home games this season on Saturday afternoons. The problem is that all four want to play on Friday night, traditionally the night for high school football in Southern California.

“It’s pretty simple,” said Gary Sabella, Trabuco Hills athletic director. “Friday is the most desirable night to play football because that’s the night you’re going to sell the most tickets. You want to play on Friday as much as you can because, lets face it, we’re trying to make as much money as we can.”

This is nothing new, of course, and neither is talk of a second stadium in the district. Peter Hartman, district superintendent for 12 years, said about 10 years ago people were looking to build a stadium at El Toro High.

“But the money was never available,” he said.

Of course, they’re still studying the money issue today, as well as trying to gauge how the district’s school-age population will grow.

“Growth is critical,” Chlebicki said. “The lack of funds for a growing school district such as ours could kill something such as a stadium. We are studying the growth of our community and when and where we will need new schools. We’re studying how many homes will be built and how many of those houses will be filled. We may need to use all our money to build new schools and there will be no money left for facilities such as stadiums.”

So it all comes down to money, and to that end, Hartman has been involved in helping to restructure the state bylaws that govern the funding of school facilities. However, this entails much more than just stadiums. It also includes the funding of facilities such as computer labs and libraries.

Hartman, along with other school officials from around the state, has been lobbying to increase the amount of a school’s square footage the state will fund, and he has been instrumental in gaining a 10% leeway for the expenditure of funds raised by schools.

“In the past,” Hartman said, “even if you raised the money yourself, you couldn’t use the money for certain things like stadiums.”

Besides lobbying in Sacramento, Hartman has turned his attention to local developers. It was Hartman’s theory that if developers were going to build and sell houses for families, the same developers should pitch in some money to help fund the schools.

This was Hartman’s theory, not the developers’.

“Let’s just say, I wouldn’t have won any popularity contests with the developers when I first proposed it,” Hartman said.

His rating went down further when he threatened to seek court injunctions against any further development until the developers agreed to give the district money.

“It was a pretty nasty time,” Hartman said. “One of the developers got up at a school board meeting and said I had a bad attitude. But the facts of today demand that you be aggressive in seeking out funding.

“They (developers) have an impact on the community and therefore have a responsibility to the community. Things are pretty cordial now, they’ve helped us out.”

And so back to money, which of course is the only issue here.

“If there was clearly enough money, the stadium would be built tomorrow,” Chlebicki said.

In the meantime, there will be more studies. And there will be more waiting for people like Gary Sabella.

“This is all I can tell you about the status of the stadium,” Sabella said. “We’re hoping.”