HUNTINGTON BEACH : City Rejects Plea for Help Building Gym

Rejecting a plea from Fountain Valley School District officials, the City Council has declined to help pay for a new gymnasium at Talbert Middle School.

Lacking the city’s financial support, the gym probably will not be built, leaving the district without an indoor facility for sports and other activities, said Eric John Bathen Jr., an attorney who represents the district in real estate affairs.

The school district made the request because of its plans to demolish Bushard School, a closed site that includes a gym, to make way for a housing development.

The gym at Bushard was built 10 years ago with the city’s Housing and Community Development Block Grant funding. The district and the city at the time entered into a 25-year lease of the facility.

After deciding to close Bushard, district officials agreed to buy out the remaining term of the lease for $237,000. They have since requested that the city return that money to the district to help it build a replacement gym at Talbert, arguing that the city could use it as an alternative recreational facility.

“There is a great need for it,” said Marc Ecker, the district’s director for community services. “The gym at Talbert could go far for the need of Huntington Beach for a second facility, while filling a desperate need for the Fountain Valley School District.”

The council rejected the request, noting that the city’s boys and girls club, which had used the Bushard gym, has since moved its activities to the gym recently added to Marcus McCallen Park as part of the park’s ongoing improvement project.

“With the city funding, we were willing to guarantee that there would be a gym built at Talbert,” Bathen said. “But now there are no guarantees. . . . We have no plans to build it now.”

The district’s board will now decide whether it can afford to build the gym, which would cost more than $1 million, Bathen said.

Along with turning down the school district’s request, the council voted 6 to 1 to divert the Bushard gym lease-buyout revenue to the McCallen Park renovation.