Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : School District Ends Dispute by Accepting Developer’s Site

After months of squabbling, the school district in Acton and Agua Dulce has finally settled a dispute over the dedication of a high school site from a developer.

After an often-heated, two-hour discussion, trustees agreed Thursday in a 3-2 decision to accept the 40-acre site as well as an adjacent 10-acre elementary site from a subsidiary of Watt Land Inc., a Santa Monica-based developer. Board members Nancy Kelso and Brian Sherwood dissented.

The decision comes after hours of arguing over the land among the five members of the Soledad-Agua Dulce Union School District board, the developer and residents of the two rural communities, situated between the Antelope and Santa Clarita valleys.

Two trustees in February signed documents accepting the land without the full board’s approval. That action of those two trustees prompted the county to issue $1.9 million in bonds through a special tax district to buy the property from the developer. It also made community members call for the resignations of those two board members, Laurie Browning and Joyce Field.

The board’s action Thursday clears the way for the district to build its students a high school, if it can come up with the money. Effective July 1, it will expand from a kindergarten through eighth-grade district to a K-12 district, becoming the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District.