Simi Valley Trustees Authorize Foundation to Sell 1,800-Acre Site : Education: School board gives control of surplus land to group. Wood Ranch residents want a say in picking developers.

Hoping to convert 1,800 acres of surplus land into $7.6 million in cash, the Simi Valley school board on Tuesday voted unanimously to give control of the property to a foundation empowered to sell it.

School trustees also agreed to expand the foundation board so that residents of the upscale Wood Ranch neighborhood, which adjoins the Long Canyon property, would have a better chance to be represented. The Wood Ranch residents have argued that they deserve a voice when the foundation chooses between developers bidding for the land.

“The foundation can act in total secrecy and there’s no way to have input in what they are doing,” said Ronald R. Robinson, co-chairman of a committee representing 250 Wood Ranch residents. “They will have no public meetings and they’ll be making all these decisions that affect us.”

School board President Diane Collins said the Simi Valley Foundation for Educational Excellence will represent the interests of everyone and that Wood Ranch residents will have plenty of chances to voice concerns about development of the property when developers bring proposals to the city’s Planning Commission.

The foundation is being given control of the property because the state imposes too many restrictions on money derived from the sale of land owned by school districts, Collins said.

For instance, the foundation could use the interest from the sale to fund the school district’s ongoing operations, which the board is not allowed to do, officials said.

Most of the proceeds from the sale are expected to pay for the construction of a Wood Ranch elementary school, slated to cost $6.2 million. Any leftover money could be put to a variety of uses by the foundation.

Some school board members have argued that Wood Ranch residents would be biased if given the chance to make decisions about neighboring developments and about the money for their long-awaited elementary school. But the residents dismissed that concern.

“Just silly. That’s like saying that minority groups can’t be objective about desegregation,” said Denise Guerrero, first vice president of the 500-member Sycamore Canyon Village Homeowners Assn.

Guerrero said her association’s position is that if Wood Ranch residents don’t have a special seat on the foundation’s board, they should at least be allowed to apply for the two community representative positions on the panel.

“The board can’t make a good argument for excluding us,” she said.

Collins tried. She compared putting Wood Ranch residents on the foundation to allowing her neighbors to decide to whom she should sell her house. Trustee Judy Barry also supported keeping Wood Ranch residents off the board.

Ultimately, though, trustee Norm Walker joined Debbie Sandland and Carla Kurachi in supporting the expansion of the board from five to seven members. The school board had excluded Wood Ranch residents in their first round of interviews, but this time the seats should be open to everyone, Walker said.

“I think what we did was perhaps in error,” Walker said. “There are a great many qualified people in Wood Ranch.”

School board members said the foundation will accept bids for the property in the next few months. The school is already designed and could open just a year or two after the land is sold.

Wood Ranch developer Olympia/Roberts gave the school district the property in 1993 after breaking an agreement to pay for the new elementary school. Most students from the area attend Madera elementary school.