School Sites a Community Choice

How many ways does the Oxnard School District have to be told that a patch of cropland near Emerson Street is a lousy place for a school? Now a state agency is suing the city of Oxnard for its bad decision to extend utilities to the site after its annexation request was rejected.

It’s time to stop wasting money and--even more critical in this case--time, and build the school in a less problematic location. Better yet, it’s time to find a more productive way to make tough decisions about school siting because there are many more such decisions ahead.

The Local Agency Formation Commission, the panel charged with maintaining orderly growth in Ventura County, filed a lawsuit last week aimed at blocking plans to build Juan Soria Elementary on a 14-acre sod field just east of Oxnard. The agency last year rejected a request by the school district to annex that parcel to the city, arguing that allowing a school to be built on farmland would set a dangerous precedent. But in December, the district contracted with the city for water, sewer and public safety services, a move that could have allowed construction to proceed without the annexation.

Among the arguments against the site are that it is in a theoretically protected greenbelt, outside the city, distant from the homes of the students it is intended to serve and adjacent to farming operations that use chemicals that could be hazardous to the health of students and staff. For all these reasons, we have consistently opposed building a school on this site.

Nonetheless, there is a real and growing need for more schools in the Oxnard district. We concede that ideal school sites are scarce. A committee of parents and community members gave the school board a list of alternative sites, but many of those have drawbacks of their own.

We support a proposal put forth by Supt. William Studt of the Oxnard Union High School District, which faces similar challenges in serving its burgeoning clientele.

Studt favors creation of a countywide task force to study and forecast the need for new schools. Its mission would include examining student housing needs, forecasting enrollment trends and providing information to the governmental agencies that make development policy decisions.

Such an approach would encourage informed, positive debate on an issue that affects Ventura County residents of all ages. We like that idea a lot better than the inflexible head-butting--and now litigation--that has already wasted two precious years and hundreds of thousands of dollars.