SANTA ANA : Shop Center Site for School Backed

A City Council majority pledged support for the Santa Ana Unified School District’s plan to build a middle school at a shopping center after residents asked for help and blasted Councilwoman Lisa Mills for lobbying state officials to pull funding from the pilot project.

“There is no price too high for making sure that as my kids go through the system, they’re provided with adequate school facilities,” said Mayor Daniel H. Young, who promised to write state officials in support of the controversial site in the Bristol Marketplace.

About 25 residents--most of them parents whose children could someday attend the school--waited more than four hours to raise the issue at Monday night’s council meeting, holding signs that read “Save Our Space-Saver School,” “We Support the Site” and “Lisa Mills Doesn’t Speak for Us.”

The school would be built in the busy shopping center at Bristol and 17th streets as part of a novel state program designed to add new schools in crowded urban areas without condemning homes or businesses.

The parents, several close to tears, begged the council members to present a positive and united face to Sacramento officials, who will decide next month whether to pay for the “space-saver” school or kill the project.

The school district could become the first in the state to build a space-saver school, but the project has come under increasing fire both here and in Sacramento in recent weeks, alarming parents and sharply dividing first the school board and now the City Council.

“We desperately need schools in the city. It would make many of us happy to see the council show support for the school district,” resident Kathi Jo Brunning said.

Mills recently wrote to state Sen. Leroy Greene (D-Carmichael) suggesting that the district overlooked cheaper sites that could provide a better youth environment. She sent similar form letters to 4,000 people in her district, urging them to write and fax Greene, chairman of the state board that hands out money for school construction.

While the council declined to take a formal vote on the project, several council members expressed support.

Young invited other council members to join him in writing state officials. Councilmen Ted R. Moreno and Robert L. Richardson pledged support Monday night, and Councilman Miguel A. Pulido Jr. said Tuesday that he stands behind the school district’s choice of the Bristol Marketplace site.

Councilman Thomas E. Lutz said he could not support the site because information he had seen justifying the choice was “loosey-goosey at best.”

If built, the school would be designated a “fundamental” school, where parents have a greater degree of control and responsibility for their children’s education. Mills said she feels for the parents who want this project and she realizes the city needs another intermediate fundamental school. But she cannot support the site, she said.

The controversy sparked by Mills’ letter came as state officials already were expressing discomfort with the project.

Based on a preliminary appraisal, the state put aside nearly $23 million in December for the school. But state officials have said in recent weeks that the project may not fit the spirit of the space-saver legislation, in part because the HomeBase store and Montgomery Ward automotive center at the mall would have to be torn down and rebuilt elsewhere at state expense.

The State Allocation Board will decide next month whether to proceed with the project. Greene said he will hold a public meeting on the matter at 7 p.m. May 26 at a yet undecided Santa Ana location.