Future of Marine Base Packs Tustin Chambers

Sixty people packed Tustin City Council chambers Tuesday to argue for or against a sweeping plan to develop the city’s former Marine helicopter base into neighborhoods of luxury homes, a golf course and business parks.

The issue, which has been debated for more than six years, drew impassioned testimony from opponents of the plan, chiefly two Santa Ana school districts that want a chunk of the base for a new kindergarten-through-college campus.

“This land falls within our district boundaries, and we are entitled to it,” said Al Mijares, superintendent of Santa Ana Unified School District.

With almost 61,000 students, Santa Ana Unified is one of the three most-overcrowded districts in California, Mijares said.

About 90% of the district’s campuses operate year-round, he said, and many of those have three times as many students as they were designed to accommodate.

The council must approve an environmental analysis of the redevelopment plan before the property can be turned over to Tustin by the Navy. The vote would change the city’s general plan to match its redevelopment design for the base.

Tuesday’s emotional session came more than six years after the city first submitted its plans for the base. The 1994 plan called for a chunk of land to be given to the Santa Ana Unified School District and Rancho Santiago Community College District. A revised plan submitted in 1996 excluded the two districts in favor of a land grant to the South Orange County Community College District.

School leaders pledged to block the city’s plan, including filing civil-rights complaints against the city. In letters sent late last year to the Navy, attorneys for the district contend that the denial of school facilities by Tustin will harm Latino students in the severely overcrowded districts.

Assemblyman Lou Correa said he is prepared to introduce a bill in the current legislative session that would force Tustin to give land to the Santa Ana districts. He said he held off to allow time to negotiate but will introduce the bill by the Feb. 23 deadline if no agreement is reached.

Correa’s bill was nearly passed by the Legislature last year. A last-minute filibuster on Tustin’s behalf by state Sen. Ross Johnson (R-Irvine) prevented it from reaching a final vote.