State board to make deal on district...

State board to make deal on district land

The California Wildlife Conservation Board will make an offer to

the Ocean View School District to buy the district’s Bolsa Chica

land, said Al Wright, the board’s executive director.

The state board will not buy the district’s 15 acres on the lower

mesa unless the board is able to purchase another 103 acres on the lower mesa from developer California Coastal Communities, Wright

said. Last Thursday, the board approved the deal with the developer,

though a sale could fall through if the California Coastal Commission

rejects a plan to allow development of the upper mesa.

The chief executive officer of California Coastal Communities, Ray

Pacini, has said he does not expect the company’s shareholders to

support the sale if no development is allowed.

Wright said he wanted to get started on the process to buy the

district’s land right away, instead of holding back until the sale is

completed. “I don’t see any reason to wait,” Wright said. “It will

probably be February before we can get anything together.”

The school board must declare the land surplus before any sale can

be made. The district bought the land in 1966, anticipating Bolsa

Chica would become a neighborhood and need an elementary school. As

long as the district owns the land, it must pay an annual fee to the

state for owning unused property. Last year, the district paid

slightly less than $46,000.

Even if the land is never sold, school board President Barbara

Boskovich said the district could escape future payments if the board

votes to declare the land surplus property.

Boskovich said she hopes the district is able to sell the land,

since the state could run out of funding to buy the land. The board

has proposed to use money from Proposition 50, a $3.4-billion state

bond passed in 2002, to buy the lower mesa.

“This is Proposition 50 money on the lower bench, and once it’s

gone, it’s gone,” Boskovich said. “It will never come back.”