Board OKs Buying New Headquarters

With its Flory Avenue offices already cramped and more growth on the way, the Moorpark Unified School District may move its headquarters into a roomier industrial building.

The change, if it happens, is still five years away. But district trustees took the first step late Tuesday when they approved spending $3.4 million for the building at 5297 Maureen Lane.

At first, the facility will house the district’s transportation, maintenance, business services and special education departments. They would share the building with its present tenant, Air-Dry Corp. of America, which will remain on a five-year lease. At the end of the lease, the district may move the remainder of its departments onto the site.

Although trustees agreed that the district administration could use the space, several worried that the school system, which already has lower financial reserves than the state recommends, might not be able to afford the building.

Air-Dry’s lease payments, $13,317 per month during the present fiscal year, will pay some of the cost, district Supt. Tom Duffy said. Once the transportation department moves, the district also hopes to sell its bus yard at Flory and Los Angeles avenues.

However, the district had counted on using $750,000 from Moorpark’s Redevelopment Agency for the down payment, money that the agency agreed to pay the district as part of an agreement settling a lawsuit over the former high school site on Casey Road. The district has not yet received the money.

Moorpark City Manager Steve Kueny said the agency does not have to pay until six months after the district sells a portion of the Casey Road site. Duffy told trustees Tuesday that he has contacted Kueny in hopes of getting the money sooner.

Without the infusion of agency cash, the district may take the building down payment from a loan intended to finance construction of a new elementary school on Casey Road. The funding questions were enough for Trustee Gary Cabriales to vote against buying the building.

“We’re going to continue to grow, and we’re going to need the new facility--I don’t have a problem with that,” he said. “I have a problem with the financing.”