District Could Delay Decision to Sell Land : Schools: After two board members’ surprise election defeat by challengers opposed to the sale, trustees meet Tuesday to decide coastal property’s fate.

The Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District board of trustees could decide Tuesday to sell a prime piece of coastal land for $3.4 million, despite strong objections from critics who oppose the sale of any school property by the financially troubled district.

Or the trustees could put off a decision on what to do with the undeveloped 8 1/2-acre Loma del Mar site and another district property until two incumbents are replaced by newly elected board members in December.

The special meeting comes on the heels of a stunning election upset last Tuesday in which board Chairman Jack Bagdasar and incumbent Joseph Sanford were defeated by challengers Barry Hildebrand and Joan Davidson, who oppose current board efforts to sell vacant school properties.

The election apparently signaled a mandate by voters to retain district property rather than sell it to keep the district afloat. Hildebrand and Davidson favor leasing the properties to generate revenues.

The Loma del Mar parcel is located on the bluffs south of Palos Verdes Drive South in Rancho Palos Verdes. The surrounding lands, owned by Orange County developer Barry Hon and the Zuckerman Building Co., are to be developed with 116 homes built around a golf course.

When the bids for the parcel were opened Wednesday, Hon and Zuckerman had the highest acceptable offer: $3.4 million. The other three bids, including one for $3.5 million, did not comply with bidding specifications, the school district’s lawyer said.

The three trustees who will remain on the board declined to discuss the bidding or say whether they will push for delaying a decision until the new members are sworn in. Supt. Michael Caston said he will recommend that the board not take any action until the staff has had more time to study the offers and make recommendations.

“There is no hurry, no rush to jump out and accept one of the bids,” he said. But Hildebrand and Davidson fear that the board will push for the sale as the swan song to its efforts of raising funds for the cash-poor district. They and their supporters are critical of the way the board has “rushed” to put the Loma del Mar site up for sale before the new trustees take office.

“The bidding was a joke,” Hildebrand said. He contends that the school district purposely set the minimum bid at $3.3 million to favor developers. “That land is worth at least $10 million,” he said.

School district officials deny that favoritism was involved or that they rushed the bidding. Developers insist that Hildebrand’s estimates are exaggerated.

The call for bids was an effort to test the market, Caston said. The land was put up for bid because the once-affluent district has fallen on hard times and needs money, he explained.

School enrollment has fallen to 8,700 from 17,800 in the mid-1970s. This has drastically reduced the amount of money the district gets from the state and resulted in the closure of seven of the district’s 19 schools in the last several years.

Although this year’s budget is in the black, school officials say the district faces a $3-million budget shortfall next year because of state funding cuts. The district has tried unsuccessfully to raise money by selling the vacant 43-acre Dapplegray Intermediate School. In September, the board also put the Loma del Mar site on the auction block.

Those moves, coupled with the consolidation of the district’s three high schools into one campus, have drawn a storm of protest.

“This is a case where we’re dammed if we do or damned if we don’t,” said Bagdasar, who has served two terms on the board.

Although the Loma del Mar controversy is expected to dominate Tuesday’s meeting, the board must also decide what to do with Dapplegray.

Shortly after Dapplegray closed in 1987, the district tried to sell the property, but the deal fell through after the district and the city failed to agree on how much of the land should be converted to residential development.

Since then, the board has tried unsuccessfully to find a lessee for the property.

When the board sought lease bids this fall, the only response was from a Japanese investor who wanted to start an English language school for Japanese students. The bid fell far short of the minimum rent sought by the district.

Caston said he will recommend that the board reject the bid Tuesday. He said an Orange County firm is expressing interest in a long-term lease of the Dapplegray site to develop a recreational sport center.