Base Decision Roils Santa Ana

The battle over redevelopment of the shuttered Tustin Marine air base escalated early Wednesday, when the Tustin City Council approved a plan that did not include land for a kindergarten-through-college campus for Santa Ana Unified School District.

In a packed meeting that started Tuesday night and stretched past 2 a.m Wednesday, the City Council ratified an environmental impact report calling for luxury homes, four facilities for the homeless, five schools, day-care facilities, a sheriff’s training center, a community college and other facilities to be developed on the nearly 1,700-acre base.

Under the plan, more than 4,600 new homes would be built for Tustin and Irvine residents and more than 58,000 permanent and temporary jobs would be created, Tustin Mayor Tracy Wills Worley said. The plan could cost $200 million and might take 20 years to complete, officials said.

The vote is an important step in getting the Department of the Navy to transfer ownership of the property to the city of Tustin.

But the Santa Ana Unified and Rancho Santiago Community College districts’ request for 100 acres near the corner of Red Hill Avenue and Barranca Parkway was rejected. That corner of the base is within Santa Ana Unified School District’s boundaries, but Tustin officials have been given the authority by the federal government to determine reuse of the whole base.

The decision outraged many Santa Ana residents, politicians and school officials, who accused Tustin officials of racial discrimination. They said the plan ignored a previous decision by the U.S. Department of Education and would deny Santa Ana’s mostly Latino working-class students relief from overcrowded conditions.

In 1994, the U.S. Department of Education allocated 75 acres of the federal base land to Santa Ana Unified and an additional 116 acres to a coalition of school districts that included Rancho Santiago Community College District. In 1996, Tustin redirected the land instead to three other school districts--Tustin Unified, Irvine Unified and South Orange County Community College.

Santa Ana officials have called Tustin officials’ decisions biased toward more affluent South County communities and against Santa Ana’s overwhelmingly Latino student population. On Wednesday, Santa Ana school officials said they would file a federal lawsuit against Tustin.

In addition, Assemblyman Lou Correa (D-Anaheim) said that he was considering reintroducing legislation that narrowly failed last year to make Tustin cede more land to Santa Ana for education.

“That property is federally owned property paid by all taxpayers,” Correa said. “These cities are neighbors, and I can’t understand how one can arbitrarily say that the needs of one community are not the needs of another.”

Worley called charges of racial discrimination off the mark and offensive. She noted that as part of the plan, the city of Tustin offered 20 acres and $20 million to Santa Ana and 10 acres to Rancho Santiago Community College District.

“These charges are very offensive to the city of Tustin,” Worley said. “We feel that we’ve made a fair offer and are concerned that [Santa Ana officials are] more interested on spending money on lawyers and lobbyists than on students. . . . It is horribly unfair and most unfortunate that SAUSD officials have played the ‘race card.’ ”

Worley said it makes sense to have more acres devoted to Tustin and Irvine schools because there will be housing on the base for residents of those two cities, creating the need for schools. She also called the discrimination charges unfair, given that 40% of Tustin’s students are Latino.

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Base Rebirth

The Tustin City Council approved environmental documents clearing the way for a plan to redevelop the sprawling 1,700-acre former Tustin air base. The approval angered the Santa Ana Unified School District, which had sought much more than the 20 acres given for a kindergarten-through-college campus. They are threatening a lawsuit.

Source: City of Tustin