$365,000 just a start

NEWPORT-MESA -- After years of planning and dreaming, a group of Costa

Mesa community members tonight will ask school district officials to

spend $365,000 to prepare working drawings to overhaul athletic

facilities at Costa Mesa and Estancia High Schools.

If approved, the money will pay an architect to develop plans for a

50-meter aquatic facility and 400-seat mini-stadium at Costa Mesa High

School, and a 2,500-seat athletic stadium at Estancia as well as a

complete overhaul of fields and courts at both schools.

The projects are expected to cost about $6 million, and community members

would have to raise the money to pay for them. To organize all this,

community members have set up a foundation to raise money.

Though the school district is cash-strapped at the moment, and grappling

with the problem of how to pay for $127 million in necessary repairs to

classrooms and office buildings, the money for the architect’s drawings

has already been appropriated. The board set aside the money for the

overhaul when the district sold off a farm site at Costa Mesa High School

two years ago.

The plans would also pay for an environmental report on the proposed

changes, to make sure stadium lights wouldn’t adversely affect residents

and deep holes wouldn’t disturb archeological sites near Fairview Park.

In their current formative phase, the plans already have coaches, parents

and students yearning for bright green fields and sparkling pool waters,

but quaking about how they are going to pay for them.

“Any improvements we can get are great,” said Galel Fajardo, a senior at

Costa Mesa High School.

But Galel himself probably won’t be around to see the improvements.

Foundation members won’t even start raising money until the architect

finishes the drawings -- about six months from now. Then it will take up

to another year to raise the money and start work.

The city of Costa Mesa, and possibly OCC, will contribute some money for

both building and maintenance because the community will benefit from the

pool as well.

Most of the money for the project, however, is expected to come from

grants and donations from local businesses.

“It’s something that needs to be done,” said Jim Scott Jr., a graduate of

Estancia High School who now works in Costa Mesa and is active in school

groups.

“It’s our turn,” said board member Jim Ferryman, who has also been active

on the foundation.

Ferryman noted that Corona del Mar High School has “an all-weather track

and the nicest swimming pool in the United States.” The money to build

those came from developer fees and from parents who raised it through a

booster club.

Unfortunately, said Ferryman, Costa Mesa parents aren’t able to donate

huge sums of money to their schools, and so raising money takes a while.

“It take a long time to get things done,” Galel said. “We have limited

funds, but we are at a distinct disadvantage to Newport Beach because

they can raise the money on their own, and we have to struggle to get

it.”

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