Be the first to know: SUBSCRIBE HERE
↑ To add this ANIMATOR CLICK HERE
Greater Orange HEADLINES in the News
Follow Greater Orange on TWITTER
Thursday, October 24, 2013
OUSD vote 7-0 to end Peralta Project
SPECIAL REPORT
ORANGE Unified Schools INSIDE
Independent
insight into OUSD
a news service of
Orange
Net News
/O/N/N/
OUSD BOARD ENDS FAIRFIELD
Tonight , the
Orange Unified School Board voted 7-0 to terminate the controversial exclusive
plan and end all agreements with Fairfield LLC to build a high density apartment
project under a 99 year lease on the former Peralta School
The
vote brought an end and a stunning defeat to the Board Majority under OUSD
Board President Timothy Surridge.
Surridge had stated at the September meeting he was ready to vote to end
the project.
Surridge
however framed his capitulation to the broad-based community coalition that
spanned the entire Greater Orange Communities as " a
compromise". Surridge called for the
price of his vote to end the project to be met by the opponents of the project
agreeing to sell all the district's approximately 40 acres of reserved
properties.
The
evening started with Surridge calling for the Informational item on a likely
facilities Bond to be heard before the Action items ( of which the Peralta vote
was one). The business community public
speakers before the item however, while supporting a Bond, called on selling of
all the districts reserve properties.
When
the vote on the Peralta Properties finally came to the OUSD Board, Surridge asked that the public
comments be held until after the vote. Those public comments from the Save
Peralta Property neighbors however were far from being in the mood for a
compromise that would turn the Peralta site , or any of the reserve properties
over to developers.
The
evening did provide continued insight into the divisions between the two sides
of the Board. Trustee Diane Singer at the start of the meeting made a point
that her agenda item to re-consider having only one meeting a month was not
added to the agenda. In an awkward surreal moment , OUSD Superintendent Michael
Christensen reported to Singer that Board President Surridge had determined
that the agenda was too long to add Singer's item, to which Singer retorted
that was the reason to have more than one meeting a month.
In
another surreal moment after the 7-0 vote and the public comments to not sell
the district's reserve properties, Trustee John Ortega went into a soliloquy
not seen since the Rocco days. Starting
with "I just want to hear the positives", the almost five minute
rambling included several remarks about him "getting it"-to his take on his
thoughts that it was "inappropriate" for Orange City Council members to oppose the
Peralta apartment project before it got to them ( "and I'll tell that to
their face"). As the Trustee continued he included several references to his job on the school
board being about students and the state of his old high school. Toward the end, as groans in the audience
grew and heckling from the audience began, Surridge mercifully helped Ortega
end his open ended public thought process.
