OXNARD : School District to Buy $5.3-Million Site

The Oxnard Elementary School District has agreed to pay $5.3 million to acquire a 25-acre parcel in La Colonia needed for a new intermediate school, officials said Friday.

The district will purchase the property from M. F. Daily Investment Co. of Camarillo, which had contested in court the district’s efforts to obtain the property through eminent domain.

School board member James J. Suter said the five-member panel approved the purchase agreement at its meeting last week.

The district had originally offered $1.7 million for the site of the future Robert J. Frank Intermediate School but Daily rejected the offer, claiming the property was worth significantly more.

When the district tried to acquire the property through condemnation, Daily responded with a countersuit demanding $5.3 million. The site is on New Colonia Road between McKinley and Juanita avenues.

Money for the intermediate school, which will include grades seven and eight, will come from a $40-million bond measure approved by voters in 1988. The measure initially called for construction of four schools, but with increased construction and land costs there is only enough money to build three.

Money has already been used to build Emilie Ritchen School, which is scheduled to open in August at the north end of the city. A third campus, to be built near the intermediate school, is in the planning stages, Suter said.

Suter said the intermediate school is expected to open in August, 1994.