Leases remain terminated

The leases of two Huntington Beach private schools renting public-school land will stay terminated, Huntington Beach City School District board members decided this week. The 3-2 vote in a closed session angered a group of residents who see the property and the schools as community assets not to be touched.

Opponents also took issue with the private nature of the decision, calling it a public issue that needed a public hearing; officials countered that state law specifically allows for private discussion of real estate so as not to sabotage negotiations. The closed meeting was a change from the agenda at a board meeting last week, where it was to be up for public discussion.

Brethren Christian Junior/Senior High School and Huntington Christian School both lease closed school sites from the district, and the fields are used by community groups like AYSO soccer teams and Boy Scouts.

The district has a request for proposals open to buy the two school sites, along with two other school sites not discussed by the board this week.

Trustees Celia Jaffe, Rosemary Saylor and Catherine McGough voted not to reinstate the leases, in a 3-2 decision. The vote was announced after the meeting, but no further explanation was given.

Board President Brian Rechsteiner said he was legally barred from discussing what happened in closed session, but said the result was to preserve the status quo for a couple of years.

“Those people have two-year leases from the time we sent those [notices],” he said. “They will have to live up to those leases, and we will have to live up to them. Even if one school went out and found a new location, they would still be responsible for the remainder of the current lease.”

Both Christian private schools, which lease the Gisler and Burke Elementary closed schools from the district, were told in June their leases will end in two years.

One other closed school, formerly LeBard Elementary, houses the district headquarters where the board meets; another, Kettler Elementary, is not in use.

The move to closed session drew some criticism. Board members said they merely moved the vote to a proper venue, but opponents of the board’s looking for buyers of four closed school properties objected.

It was a mistake to have those items on the agenda for public discussion in the first place, said Trustee Celia Jaffe, who led the vote to move to a private session.

“The intent all along was to have it be a closed-session item,” she said. “It’s common practice. We don’t discuss things like lease negotiations and contract negotiations in public.”

But Stephanie Root, part of a group that runs anti-selloff website saveHBcommunity.com, said the issue should be discussed openly.

“I think that [the board has] been very defensive about this Request for Proposal process,” she said. “If we’re the taxpayers and these are our assets as well, why aren’t we being told what’s going on until after the fact?”

Proposals to buy and develop the properties are being accepted by the school district till Oct. 5; they are expected to begin discussing them over the following month.