Council decides to allow more students at school

Jessica Garrison

COSTA MESA -- The City Council on Monday overturned a Planning

Commission decision, deciding by a 3-2 vote to allow a proposed school

for emotionally disturbed students to enroll a maximum of 50 students.

The Planning Commission had wanted to allow just 25 students at the

school.

Mayor Gary Monahan decided to appeal the Planning Commission’s

decision last month, saying he thought there was a huge need in the

Newport-Mesa area for the kind of school Richard Sewell of South Coast

Priority School is proposing to open at Harbor Assembly of God Church on

Joanne Street.

Monahan added that many students with special needs, including his own

son, must travel outside the district to find schools that meet their

needs.

“Thank you for believing in us. We won’t let you down,” said Sewell to

Monahan in an emotional moment after the meeting.

Monahan responded that helping children was all the thanks he needed.

The school, which is private and costs approximately $20,000 per year,

would serve up to 50 emotionally disturbed, learning disabled and

speech-impaired students in eight classrooms. Many of the students’

tuition is paid by the state when school districts decide the students

cannot handle regular school.

The students would only be at the school from 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m.,

and their presence will not have a major effect on the neighborhood,

Sewell said.

But the school’s presence will “eliminate the blight” in the

neighborhood, he vowed. As part of a condition of its opening, South

Coast will renovate the classrooms and will open its computer lab to

neighborhood children in the afternoon after the school’s students have

gone home.

Planning commissioners, led by Commissioner Katrina Foley, last month

voted to limit the school’s enrollment to 25 students because they were

concerned emotionally disturbed students would be a threat to property

and neighbors and would overburden the neighborhood.

South Coast already operates one such school in Newport Beach, along

with a residential treatment facility for wards of the state, as well as

four Costa Mesa group homes.

Foley noted that Newport Beach police were called out to South Coast’s

residential treatment facility 100 times last year.

Sewell countered that most of those calls came because teenagers had

run away from the facility, not because they were violent or angry.

But at Monday’s meeting, council members Heather Somers and Linda

Dixon again raised concerns about safety before voting against allowing

more students.

“I feel they should start with 25 students,” Somers said.

Dixon agreed.

“I’m relieved,” said Monahan of the split decision in his favor. “At

least a majority can see the wonderful things they’re trying to do for

the kids.”