Closer to Le Bard site sale

The Huntington Beach City Council voted unanimously this week to approve a deal to buy the closed Le Bard Elementary School from the Huntington Beach City School District, but some details have yet to be finalized.

The school district held off voting on the same deal at last week, which would sell the land to the city for $7 million, a $4.5 million piece of land near the AES power plant and $400,000 in cleanup money. The city aims to keep its playing fields as open space for residents, including Seaview Little League.

Though city staff suggested letting the school board make the first move, Councilman Keith Bohr said it was important to send a message to the public and the board after he found out there was no legal reason not to go ahead.

“It’s to the benefit of the community to show unanimous support to buy up all these fields,” he said. “We’ll let the board know where we stand. I assume they know from staff talking to each other that we’re on board in concept, but residents would know where we’re coming from.”

The city land would be offered as a way for the district to move its bus maintenance headquarters off the grounds of Dwyer Middle School, or possibly as a site for a new district office, officials said.

According to city staff, any deal would have a provision letting the district lease back the school building itself, which it uses for main offices; that would give them time to look for a new place to move, according to staff reports.

Once they move, the city hopes to sell the Le Bard building — without the land attached — to a private school that has offered about $3 million for the site, city staff told council members.

Many of the preliminary agreement’s details were released last week by the school district ahead of a special meeting, but board members called that a mistake.

With only three board members out of five in attendance at a meeting last Thursday, they voted to hold off on any public discussion of the closed school site.

“The current draft of the [agreement] was not intended to be public,” board President Celia Jaffe said at the meeting. “The board did not have the opportunity to discuss details with negotiators before today. Due to that fact and the fact that we are incomplete, and we have not done some of our due diligence on the property yet, we are looking to potentially table this discussion today.”

If approved by the school district at an upcoming meeting, the deal wouldn’t automatically make the sale. Instead, it would give staff on both sides six months to work out the details, with another six months allowed if both sides vote to renew.

If the deal falls through, both sides would meet again to talk about using the Naylor Act, a state law giving cities special privileges to buy open space from school districts for a discount.

“I think this is a reasonable approach,” Bohr said. “We’re not putting up all the money in cash.”

MICHAEL ALEXANDER may be reached at (714) 966-4618 or at michael.alexander@latimes.com.