Vote Begins on School in Coto de Caza

Voting is scheduled to begin today on one of the biggest controversies dividing Coto de Caza: whether to build a public school inside private security gates.

Balloting for the community of about 10,000 residents will involve a procedure as complex as that used in U.S. presidential elections.

Backers of the plan, which would create the first such school in California, say the collection of 20 portable classrooms would ease overcrowding at nearby Wagon Wheel Elementary School.

But longtime residents fear the proposal would threaten their privacy and security because guards would have to admit outsiders who want to visit the public school. They also question whether it’s legal.

A town meeting tonight is expected to draw such a raucous crowd of hundreds of residents that a professional mediator has been hired to quell personal attacks and yelling.

“There is a large core of residents who are very engaged,” said John Zarian, president of the homeowners association.

The 400-student campus would include students from kindergarten through second or third grade. Almost all of them live inside Coto, said Supt. James Fleming of the Capistrano Unified School District. Fleming wants to lease eight acres of property from the homeowners association for $1 a year for five years.

The district would spend an estimated $2.5 million to buy and install the modular classrooms, including a cafeteria, library, computer center and administration building, if the school wins voter approval.

Lennar Homes, which owns development rights to the remaining 1,000 undeveloped acres in Coto, traded the school land for a 2 1/2-acre parcel that had been set aside for open space and was owned by the homeowners association. The Mission Viejo development firm also agreed to pay to remove the school from Coto if it is somehow deemed illegal or inappropriate, officials said.

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Results of the ballot count won’t be tallied and announced for two weeks, under a complicated voting system.

Once ballots are mailed, residents have until March 1 to send them back to the property management company that runs Coto. One vote is allowed per household. On Monday, voting booths will be open at Coto Valley Community Club to accommodate residents who don’t want to use a paper ballot.

The last step mimics the role of the electoral college used in presidential elections, once the votes are tallied by the company. An estimated 30 delegates representing different neighborhoods within Coto are then selected and told how their neighborhood voted. They will meet March 3 to cast ballots that reflect the community’s general population; however, if fewer than half the households in any neighborhood participate, the delegate is not required to follow that neighborhood’s vote.

If the referendum fails, the modular classrooms will be added to the 24 already on the grounds of Wagon Wheel Elementary School. Open playing fields will disappear, said Jill Harmon, a Coto parent who backs the school proposal, and lunch will be served as early as 10 a.m. to feed the increase in students.

“It will be a nightmare,” she said.

LeAnn Ricks, one of the vocal dissenters, says the school project is too risky and costly for Coto homeowners because it will affect their property values and quality of life.