School District Lawyer Calls Land Deal Signed by 2 Officials Invalid : Agua Dulce: He says the women did not commit a crime. The board can now negotiate terms of the 40-acre high school site donation.

A land deal that two Santa Clarita Valley school board members tried to conclude without permission from the remainder of the board is invalid, but the two board members involved committed no crime, the school district’s attorney has concluded.

The attorney delivered the opinion Thursday night to the board of the Soledad-Agua Dulce Union School District in Acton. In essence, he said the action last month by school board members Laurie Browning and Joyce Field had no legal impact on them or the district.

As a result, the district has not accepted the donation of a 40-acre high school site in Agua Dulce from a developer, attorney Alexander Bowie said. That leaves the school board free to negotiate with the developer over the terms of the donation, as the board wanted. The developer is required to give the land to the district as a condition of receiving county zoning permits for the development.

The unusual dispute surfaced recently after two school board members signed a document Feb. 2 accepting the transfer of the school site from a subsidiary of Watt Land Inc. although the full school board had not voted to accept the site.

The school board last week asked Bowie’s law firm to determine whether Browning and Field had acted illegally and where the district stood. That came amid some residents’ calls for the two board members to resign and amid fears that their action might have weakened the district’s bargaining position.

Most people in the district want the high school site, since voters there decided in November to create a unified school district that will run its own high school program. But questions have remained over whether the district or the developer will pay for water service and other improvements.

On Thursday night, Field admitting making a mistake, but said she had been pressured by the developer’s representative and felt the school board had previously agreed to accept the site, at least informally. Browning was absent.

Bowie, a partner in the Newport Beach law firm of Bowie, Arneson, Kadi, Wiles & Giannone, said the request that they sign the acceptance--made by Don MacAdam, a Watt representative--was “premature and inappropriate.” It was apparently aimed at getting quicker access to bond money that was part of the deal, Bowie said.

Although the district is not paying for the property, the developer received $1.9 million for the site from Mello-Roos bonds issued by the county in January that will be repaid by future home owners in two of the developer’s projects.

MacAdam, a partner in Watt’s planned Rio Dulce Ranch and Sierra Colony Ranch projects in Agua Dulce, denied pressuring the two school board members. He also said the action by the two school board members did not hasten or otherwise affect the release of the money.