PLACENTIA : District Unveils Plans to Upgrade Facilities

Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District officials have unveiled plans for spending $1.6 million in developer fees during the 1991-92 year as part of a long-range plan to upgrade facilities by 1995.

The plan, which outlines projects ranging from installing new air-conditioning systems to a multimillion-dollar expansion of Esperanza High School, is intended as a wish list for projects through 1995, even though the district will be hard-pressed to find funding, said Mike Bailey, the district’s director of facilities planning.

“It’s a very long list of plans with a very short list of resources,” Bailey said. The plan “certainly points out the need and dedication. This is just the beginning of the process.”

School planners estimate that they will receive $350,000 in developer fees for the 1991-92 year, adding to $2 million in reserves from previous years. Most of the fees are derived from surcharges on the price of homes.

Most of the $1.6 million in developer fees spent this year will go for leasing portable classrooms at 13 schools. In addition, $20,000 has been earmarked to help select a site for an elementary school proposed for North Fairmont Boulevard in Yorba Linda, and another $175,000 is to go toward the purchase of a new mainframe computer for the district.

The plan also identifies $12.6 million in projects for the current year that could be funded with money provided by redevelopment agencies of cities within the district. Even so, there are doubts that all of the projects can be funded because current district redevelopment reserves of $5.6 million and estimated new income of $1.9 million, plus $230,000 in interest, would not be enough to get all the projects under way.

The list includes $265,000 for new alarm systems at four high schools, $130,000 for repairing vandalism at the Little Theater at El Dorado High School, $1.5 million for refurbishing and repairing the auditorium and $500,000 for stadium renovations at Valencia High School.

Over the next three years, school officials have proposed spending $630,000 on new alarm systems at elementary, middle and junior high schools, $1.4 million on a new multipurpose room at Yorba Linda Middle School and $550,000 on expanding the auditorium at Kraemer Junior High.

The most ambitious project on the list is a $2.7-million expansion plan for Esperanza High School, which the district hopes to start in 1994-95. Bailey said that although enrollment at the school has stabilized, additional students are expected, particularly from the east end of the district.

Bailey added that constructing a new high school would cost about $35 million, and the proposal for expanding Esperanza was put on the list “for purposes of dialogue.”