School Board Delays Decision on 2 Properties : Funding: Palos Verdes Peninsula District trustees first reject offers on Loma del Mar and Dapplegray sites, saying they were not high enough.

Trustees of Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District will postpone decisions about what to do with two vacant district properties until after two newly elected board members take office Dec. 2.

The once-affluent district has fallen on hard times. Declining enrollments and dwindling revenues forced the closure of seven of the district’s 19 schools and layoffs of nearly half the district’s administrative staff of 32. To raise money to head off a projected budget deficit of $3 million in fiscal 1992-93, the board is trying to sell or lease its surplus property.

Trustees are debating the future of the 8.5-acre Loma del Mar site, a coastal property in Rancho Palos Verdes, and the badly vandalized Dapplegray Intermediate School, a 43-acre campus in Rolling Hills Estates.

This week, the board rejected four bids for the Loma del Mar site because the district’s attorney said none of the bids met the minimum requirements, including a 10% deposit and lump-sum purchase. None of the bidders submitted a deposit, and several asked the district to finance the sale by loaning them part of the purchase price.

The bids ranged from $3.3 million to $3.7 million. In September, the district put the land on the market and set the minimum bid price at $3.3 million, a decision that touched off a controversy because critics said the property was worth more.

The Loma del Mar site borders a proposed development of 116 homes and an 18-hole golf course planned by Orange County developer Barry Hon and Zuckerman Building Co. Rancho Palos Verdes is considering the proposal.

Bidders have complained that the district refused to allow on-site geological tests, forcing them to bid without knowing if houses could be built there. In January, trustees will consider whether to allow the tests.

Representatives of Hon and the other bidders say that there is no way to make a firm bid without such testing and that their bids were also contingent on whether homes could be safely built on the property.

Hon and Zuckerman bid $3.4 million for the school site, but the offer was contingent on the land being geologically suitable for construction of eight homes. If it was not, they offered only $1 million and planned to put a golf course on the site.

Concerning the Dapplegray site, trustees rejected a Japanese investor’s offer to lease the long-vacant campus, saying his offer was about one-third of the $350,000 a year the district wants in rent.

The board then decided to delay further action on the two properties until after Joan Davidson and Barry Hildebrand join the board to replace ousted incumbents Jack H. Bagdasar and Joseph P. Sanford. Davidson and Hildebrand favor leasing rather than selling district properties.