For Whom Do School Bells Toll? Don’t Ask

In Coto de Caza, where every day is just another excuse to wake up and pinch yourself, only one fear exists.

That’s the fear that someone, somehow, might try and take it away from you. Vandals from the west, Goths from the north, Huns to the east; you never know from which direction the threat may come.

If you lived with that, you’d be on the lookout too. If outsiders call you snooty or paranoid, that’s their problem. They don’t have what you have.

Once upon a time, people built moats for security. Nowadays, we build guard stations, post sentries and hire security patrols.

Which is how Coto de Caza has insulated itself from the outside world throughout its 25-year history.

But just as people with penchants for privacy can be easily spooked, so can communities. And these days, some residents inside the gates of Coto de Caza hear a rustling in their sylvan glade.

And it isn’t the trees.

The noise is over the prospect that, zounds, a school might be placed in their midst.

Like most communities--even the master-planned ones--Coto has spawned children. Drat the luck, but its children are in the notoriously overcrowded Capistrano Unified School District. Classroom space is shrinking, and the district wants to put 20 modular classrooms inside the gates of Coto de Caza.

To many residents, this is the nightmare they’ve long feared.

Now, they envision a scenario that--because of the presence of a public facility in a private community, which some say is unconstitutional--

might ultimately lead to the tumbling down of their walls.

Residents in most neighborhoods fear prowlers. I’ve never heard of any fearing desks, chalkboards and water fountains.

Between now and March 3, when residents vote on the school, the question will be on the front burner in this community of 6,500.

Ron Greek is a Coto resident who has represented it in the past on its efforts to gain cityhood. He says he’s neutral on the modular classroom debate but has “a lot of confidence in the judgment of the [Coto de Caza] people who are putting the school together. I know they would not do anything that would risk us the loss of our private community status. I know they’ve done a tremendous amount of research not to make that kind of mistake.”

Greek, an insurance agent, says he’d oppose the project if he thought it posed any threat to that status.

“It would be a major loss to the community if we lost our private community status,” he says. “I’m one of the chief petitioners on the cityhood issue, and we’ve been very delicate about doing anything in that respect that would cost us [that] status.”

For example, he says, Coto would not make any of its roads public thoroughfares.

And although he’s a privacy advocate, Greek notes that Coto already sports a public restaurant and grants wide access to outsiders involved in youth sports activities or using the parks inside Coto.

“It’s quasi-private,” Greek says of the community. “We check everybody coming in, and you have to have an invitation or a darn good reason to be there, but basically if you have a good reason, you’re not denied access.”

The strong demand for classroom space, Greek says, means the school may well come in. While not subscribing to the doomsday scenario, he quickly concedes, “The problem with all of this is that you may have a legal interpretation, but then people go into court [to challenge it], and it changes everything. That’s the big problem. That’s the potential threat.”

To those of us on the outside looking in, it’s hard to think of 20 modular classrooms as a potential threat to a style of life.

You know what? That’s exactly what the people of Troy thought awhile back when the Greeks wheeled that big horse in.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at the Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com