Schools’ Statement on Dapplegray Suit

The following statement clearly indicates why the Board of Education decided to protect the school district’s rights regarding the value of the Dapplegray School site, an asset to the whole community.

People who were in attendance when Mrs. Jacki McGuire was sworn in as a Rolling Hills Estates City Council member stated she made the statement that she would never vote on any issue regarding her employer, the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, and would abstain from voting.

Any devaluation of the Dapplegray property affects the educational opportunities of each student presently in our district and those who attend our schools in the future.

Statement regarding the district’s suit against the city of Rolling Hills Estates regarding Dapplegray School site:

The city of Rolling Hills Estates rezoned the district’s Dapplegray School site from residential to a new “institutional” zone. This institutional zone drastically restricts the uses to which the district can put the Dapplegray site.

Essentially, the institutional zone limits a lessee or purchaser of the site to using the site for a school, a church, or for certain public buildings.

Dapplegray, and the entire surrounding area, has for many years been zoned residential.

The rezoning makes the Dapplegray site an “island” of institutionally zoned property surrounded by residentially zoned property.

If this rezoning is permitted to stand without challenge, the value of the district’s property, and the sale or lease income which it might produce for the district will be reduced.

The school district is not seeking any damages from the city of Rolling Hills Estates, but only asked that the court set aside the rezoning.

The district’s request to the court to set aside the rezoning is based largely on a state law which prohibits a city from downzoning school district property.

Also, under state law, a city can acquire school district property for recreational use at 25% of its fair market value. The city’s downzoning of Dapplegray, if permitted to stand, would have the effect of permitting the city to acquire portions of the Dapplegray site for recreational land for a price even less than that permitted by state law.

The district also asks that the City Council’s vote on the rezoning be set aside, and that a re-vote be taken because Council Member McGuire had either an actual conflict of interest or an appearance of a conflict of interest.

Mrs. McGuire is a teacher employed by the school district, and her vote has an impact on the funds which would be available to pay salary increases to district teachers.

The district is not seeking damages against Mrs. McGuire, but simply asks that the court prevent her from voting due to this conflict of interest.

JACK H. BAGDASAR

President, Board of Education

Palos Verdes Peninsula

Unified School District