SANTA ANA : District Defends Site Purchasing Process

Officials for the Santa Ana Unified School District have defended the process of acquiring land for new schools, a procedure which critics have blasted as financially irresponsible.

An overflow crowd of 100 people packed the trustees’ boardroom Tuesday to hear an explanation of how the district purchases land.

In the last few weeks, district officials have received numerous questions from community members over the cost of two multimillion-dollar properties.

Michael G. Vail, the school district’s senior director of facilities, disputed charges by critics that the district pays too much for school sites.

“We follow a process established by the state to ensure that real estate transactions of a school district are tamper-proof” and at fair market value, he said.

As required by the state, which funds the district’s school construction, the district does detailed studies of the property as well as investigation of similar sites to determine a fair market price.

Vail emphasized that state officials oversee each stage of a site acquisition and review the district’s appraisal of properties before a purchase is approved.

The district followed those steps in the 1990 purchase of a property at Grand and Chestnut avenues and paid $18.5 million for the site.

Although the site sold for $12.6 million a few months earlier, Vail said the price the district paid was fair because of special circumstances that existed at the time.

The original owner of the property needed to sell the property quickly because it needed cash and sold it at a low price.

The new owner increased the value of the property by obtaining city permission to develop the property, Vail said.

He also defended a current proposal to build a “space-saver” school on 11 acres at the back of the Bristol Market Place.

The district is planning to spend about $22 million for that site, and state officials have given approval for the project.

Vail discounted suggestions by real estate experts that the site appears to be worth less than half that amount, saying they probably had not examined the site firsthand or done a detailed analysis.

The cost will also include relocating current tenants and factors apart from the cost of the land itself.

Furthermore, he pointed out that the $22-million figure was only a rough estimate to enable state officials to set a preliminary budget for the project.

For now, he said, “no one knows what the site is really going to cost.”

The district is now getting three separate appraisals of the property, the first of which is expected to be completed within the next few weeks.