Diamond in the rough

Dave Brooks

Alan Gandall’s living room makes for some of the best seats in the

house.

The Huntington Beach real estate broker’s Pioneer Drive home faces

six pristine baseball diamonds used by the hundreds of children each

spring who play in the Huntington Valley Little League.

Now, Gandall is stepping up to the plate in a new role as field

guardian and activist with a loose coalition of neighbors who are

trying to block a plan by the property’s owner, the Fountain Valley

School District, to sell the land for residential development.

The dispute could become Huntington Beach’s next big land-use

fight with a roster that includes a federal agency, a national

nonprofit, Mark McGuire and Major League Baseball.

In early January, the school district’s Assistant Supt. of

Business Services Barry Blade sent a letter to residents living near

the park, detailing the district’s intention to sell the land.

Located off Magnolia Street between Adams and Yorktown avenues,

the 14-acre former school site is now home to a city park, the

Huntington Valley Boys and Girls Club, the local chapter of Head

Start and six Little League baseball diamonds. The district is also

considering selling two other old school sites including one at 10251

Yorktown Ave. in Huntington Beach and another in Fountain Valley.

The district leases the three properties for about $250,000 a

year, Blade said. The district could generate a substantially larger

amount of money, he argues, if the properties were sold, each for an

estimated value of $25 million, and the money then poured into Wall

Street investments.

“If you could invest that money with a 5% annual return, you would

have a net income 15 times greater than what the district is

currently getting for the properties,” he said. “We’re looking to

make an investment that benefits kids.”

In November, Fountain Valley sold its district offices for $24.7

million.

Blade said the sales would shore up district finances, but

opponents call the plan short-sighted and worry about the 3,000

children who would be displaced.

“You can chose to invest in the stock market or you can choose to

invest in our children’s lives,” said Gandall, newly appointed

president of the group Save Our Field.org. “Who is your fiduciary

duty to?”

The decision sent shockwaves through the Boys and Girls Club

facility, which has rented the school building since 1981 for its

after-school Kids Connections Branch Program and Learning Center

Preschool.

“This would create a huge void in the community,” said Boys and

Girls Club CEO Tanya Hoxsie, who said that many of the children who

participated in the program come from low- income families.

“We’re providing affordable preparation for these children before

they go to school,” she said. “It’s better for them to get help now

then try to help them later.”

Renee Aumiller, a Little League board member, said she was

surprised to hear about the potential sale, especially after the

group spent $300,000 improving the fields.

“Our initial concern is ‘Where are they going to put us?’” she

said. “We feel the buyer of the land should have to relocate us, but

we’re not even sure if there is anywhere else we can go.”

Whoever buys the land might decide to relocate the Little League

fields, Baker said, but the district has no intention of moving them

or reimbursing the league.

That response has angered the Mark McGuire Foundation for

Children, which donated a total of $200,000 to build the field,

foundation CFO James Milner said.

“This is just wrong, where are our values?” said Milner, who added

that the Major League Baseball Players Assn. had also poured money

into the field with the expectation that it be used for baseball. “I

plan to expend every resource available to me to prevent them from

doing this. Would they rather see our children playing in a sand lot

under the 405 [San Diego Freeway]?”

But it’s not the district’s job to safeguard baseball, and it must

protect it’s own financial outlook and fund programs for Fountain

Valley students, Blade said.

“I don’t see it as the school district’s mission to hold or horde

property,” he said.

Recently the district had to tap into its reserve and operate at a

$700,000 deficit for the next fiscal year, a district budget report

said. Two years ago the district had to enact several rounds of

layoffs to stay afloat.

“I think it’s absolutely inexcusable to let the property just sit

there when programs are being affected,” Blade said.

The district’s board of trustees is scheduled to vote on the sale

at its Feb. 10 meeting. Selling the property would require four out

of five votes from the school board and the current tenants would

have until the end of 2006 to vacate.

Until that time, Milner and others said they are preparing to

fight.

“To put it in baseball terms, we’re getting ready for nine innings

of play,” he said. “So let the games begin.”

* DAVE BROOKS covers City Hall. He can be reached at (714)

966-4609 or by e-mail at dave.brooks@latimes.com.