Youth League Backers Strike Out With Board

Despite the objections of more than 100 Little League supporters, Fountain Valley School District trustees have voted unanimously to sell three surplus school sites, including one in Huntington Beach that had been used for youth baseball.

“I sympathize with them as a parent whose kids played youth sports,” trustee Pat Harney said. “But as a school board member, our priority is to provide the best education for the kids in our district.”

Officials with the district, which was forced to cut $2 million from its budget two years ago, said the three properties could bring the district $80 million if sold for residential development.

Harney said the district would use the money to reinstitute music programs, hire more remedial reading tutors and raise teacher salaries, which are the lowest in Orange County.

“This gives us some independence from Sacramento,” Harney said. “We can’t count on them to come to our rescue.”

The ball fields at Pioneer Avenue and Magnolia Street were part of a campus used until 1983 as Wardlow Elementary School. With declining enrollment, the campus was converted for use by the Boys & Girls Club, which serves 1,120 youths at the site, and as a Head Start chapter. The ball fields were leased to the Little League, which has nearly 600 players in the local league.

The potential loss of the fields struck an emotional chord with community activists, Little League parents and a children’s foundation operated by retired slugger Mark McGwire, whose son Matt played on the fields. The groups organized petition drives, created a website and came out in force Thursday night for the school board meeting.

“We were caught between a budget crisis and a city that didn’t plan for youth sports,” said Renee Aumiller, a Little League board member. “I’m pretty disappointed and sad.”

District Supt. Marc Ecker said he is hoping to work with the various youth clubs and preschools that will be displaced.

“I think there are a variety of ways to offset some costs,” he said. “We could provide some space at an active school site or provide a reasonable amount of money to relocate.”