Decision on Oxnard School Site

* Today the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) will decide whether, for the first time in history, it will approve a development project in a greenbelt--Juan Soria School.

The people of Ventura County have made it clear that they are committed to the preservation of our No. 1 industry: agriculture. Most of our cities have drawn boundaries around themselves, and countywide Measure A stipulated that present greenbelts must be strengthened and new ones added.

Oxnard city staff and the Oxnard Elementary School District recently formed a school siting committee, which named 29 sites within the city where schools could be built.

George Shaw of the state Department of Education reminded us that “no site is perfect,” but he agreed that many of the sites were possible. My favorite of the locations is already owned by the school district, so there would be no cost for land. And this is only one of the 29 places within the city where a school could be built!

Many residents dedicated to education and the children expect LAFCO will abide by the state law know as Cortese / Knox, deny the greenbelt siting of Juan Soria School and build the school on one of the more appropriate sites.

Our children deserve no less.

JEAN HARRIS

Oxnard

* I believe we have found the “smoking gun” in the Oxnard Elementary School District’s case for the Emerson Avenue site for Juan Soria School.

Three years ago, the district automatically eliminated several excellent sites based on an inaccurate airport hazard map. Either intentionally or through gross negligence, the district has since used this map before its own board of trustees, the Oxnard Planning Commission and the Oxnard City Council to justify its position that it has nowhere to go except the Emerson site.

We are convinced that if these reviewing entities had not been relying on the district’s incorrect map, all three bodies would have found many preferable sites for the school inside the city boundaries. We therefore recommend that LAFCO reverse any approvals of this site that were based on this false information.

The real airport comprehensive land-use plan for Oxnard Airport shows why the two new high schools were allowed to be constructed in their proximity to the airport and why at least 12 potential sites chosen by the school siting committee would all be more appropriate locations for a new school.

The restrictive zones identified on this map simply do not eliminate many good school sites as asserted by the district. The rule is as follows: If a recommended school site is within two nautical miles of the center of a runway it must be reviewed by the state. No rule states that siting a school inside this two-mile zone will be prohibited.

It will not be surprising if even this information has no effect on the district, which is so single-minded in its efforts to build on the Emerson site that some of us who have pointed out the problems with this site have even had to face being personally maligned by the district’s superintendent in publications paid for with our own tax dollars.

GAIL ROSENMUND

School Site Selection

Committee Member

Oxnard