SANTA ANA : Alternative Site for ‘Space Saver’ Urged

Santa Ana schools trustee Rosemarie Avila has sent an open letter to her fellow board members, urging them to choose another site for a controversial “space-saver” school now slated to be built at a shopping center here.

“I am requesting that we move quickly to submit another space-saver project in case this one is denied by the state,” Avila said in her letter, dated Monday.

“This space-saver concept offers us a great opportunity to receive priority funding. We must act immediately to be first in line again should we lose the Marketplace site.”

The school might be funded under a novel state program designed to build schools in congested urban areas without condemning homes or businesses.

But the issue of the school has sharply divided the board, as well as the City Council and residents who live near the proposed site.

In February, the school board majority voted to approve the Bristol Marketplace site at Bristol and 17th streets. The school district had already sent a preliminary appraisal for the site to state officials, who set nearly $23 million aside for the project.

Since then, the shopping center property has come under fire from some local residents and officials who said the Santa Ana Unified School District didn’t give adequate consideration to cheaper sites.

State officials also have criticized the steep preliminary appraisal for including the cost to tear down and rebuild two buildings at the mall.

The State Allocation Board will vote next month on whether to proceed or revoke Santa Ana’s funding altogether.

In her letter, Avila said the parents of Santa Ana have been placed on “a roller-coaster ride” as the site has been debated. She urged that some boarded-up apartments on a 12-acre property valued at $6.9 million be considered instead.

But other board members and district officials have criticized that property as untenable. The blighted apartments are tied up in litigation and would have to be annexed from the Orange School District.