Santa Ana Schools, Alleging Bias, Sue Tustin Over Land

Escalating a dispute over land at the closed Tustin Marine base, two overwhelmingly Latino school districts in Santa Ana sued the city of Tustin on Monday, alleging that the city’s base reuse plan violates their students’ civil rights.

“First they didn’t want our students on the base; now they want to give us land that will be harmful to our students, parents and employees,” said John Palacio, a board member with the Santa Ana Unified School District, which along with Rancho Santiago Community College District filed the class action lawsuit in a Los Angeles federal court.

Negotiations between Tustin and the school districts fell apart last week amid accusations by the districts that a final offer from the city included land in the base that was highly contaminated.

“The allegations of racial discrimination are baseless, outrageous and offensive,” said Tustin City Manager William A. Huston. “We intend to fully defend ourselves against those charges.”

The school districts want 100 acres on the base for a unique kindergarten-through-college campus. Tustin and the U.S. Education Department initially granted the request in 1994, but the city later changed its plan and offered the land to the South Orange County Community College District.

“That same plan sets aside nearly 200 acres of free land to accommodate the construction of new schools for two school districts and one community college district which have substantial non-Hispanic populations and do not have a critical need for such land,” the lawsuit contends.

Last week the districts rejected Tustin’s final offer of 22 acres to Santa Ana Unified, 15 acres to the Rancho Santiago district and $20 million for the districts to buy land elsewhere.

The districts allege that the smaller parcels have two ground water “plumes” with high levels of the gasoline additive MTBE and other dangerous chemicals, such as ethyl benzene, toluene and acetone.

Pollution Issue Not New, City Says

“Discrimination is the only word that can be used to explain why the City has sought to exclude [Santa Ana Unified] students--almost 92% of which are Hispanic--from sharing in the benefits that will flow from the redevelopment of the Marine Corps Air Station,” the lawsuit contends.

Huston, strongly denying discrimination, said all the parties knew that the base had underground contamination and that the Navy is obligated under federal law to clean up the land before reuse.

“All the documents dealing with the environmental cleanup have been out for years,” Huston said. “It is not a secret that in any military base there are cleanup issues. For them to represent that we conspired to give them dirty land is ridiculous.”

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Two Santa Ana school districts sued the city of Tustin on Monday over disputed land at the closed Tustin Marine base that the districts want for a school.