Site options watched

City officials are keeping an eye on the Huntington Beach City School District as it looks at selling, leasing or trading some of four closed elementary school sites. If any of the sites go up for sale officially, the city could get a proposal to the district right away, City Administrator Penny Culbreth-Graft said this week.

“They know that if it came to a point where they were ready to say, ‘Yes we want to sell,’ we would be able to move very quickly,” she said.

The city would have fewer options if the district decides to lease out the sites instead, Culbreth-Graft said. But it would try to preserve playing fields so local youth sports programs could go on.

“We do have a history of trying to work with leagues in order to be able to replace those fields,” she said. “It gets more difficult with the popularity of the youth sports programs and the loss of sites. The school district has expressed an understanding they’re trying to work with us on that too.”

The district is still a long way from a final decision. The board of trustees is scheduled to meet Tuesday at a public study session to consider some of the 18 proposals for the first time, narrowed down to a smaller number by consultants and administrative staff.

Board President Brian Rechsteiner said there would be no vote on proposals Tuesday, and the first public discussion of specific proposals would be for information and consideration only. It could possibly take multiple meetings after that to move the issue to a decision, he added.

“We’re going to have proposals presented to us and we’re going to have a discussion about them,” he said. “I think once we review them and discuss them, then we have to narrow it down and decide as a board what direction we’re going to take.”

Trustee Celia Jaffe said she thought some community members might expect too much of the study session.

“I think it will be a very important and informative meeting for people to attend if they want to have a good idea of what’s going on and what’s being considered,” she said. “But if people are expecting to come out with a firm fix on the direction, I think they’ll be disappointed.”

But Stephanie Root — who helped found savehbcommunity.com, a website opposed to selling the property to developers — said her group had reservations about a meeting in which they would face the new proposals without getting to peruse them first. Her group requested the proposals but has not received them, she said.

Asked what direction she wanted the discussion to lead in, Root said her group wanted developers off the table.

“We don’t want developers involved in the process — period,” she said. “We want the city involved, if anyone has to be.”