No 2nd HS site can be acquired until July; La Canada only option

The school district cannot pay for a second high school site until the new fiscal year starts in July, the school board has been told, and that means it will be in a race to open the building by January 2010.

The one-time goal of opening a second high school in August 2009 appears to be impossible, based on information Superintendent Jay St. John gave the Governing Board on April 9.

St. John said, “It appears Sahuarita Park is out of the question for a building” because of the length of time it would take to get approval from federal agencies, as required under Pima County’s deed.

The superintendent said, “We will probably end up condemning the La Canada site.” That 66-acre site is north of Anamax Mine Road and is owned by Park Corp.

Without funds, the district cannot begin that process until closer to July, when it will know what level of funding the state Legislature appropriates for new schools.

The only two sites that have been approved by the state School Facilities Board (SFB) are the Park Corp. site and Sahuarita Park, St. John said.

Park Corp. has suggested that the district look into buying the vacant Santa Rita Meadows, but St. John said that has not been approved by the SFB and he is loathe to rip out the water and sewer lines crisscrossing the site.

Harold Metz, controller of Twin Buttes Properties, a Park affiliate, said the La Canada site will require costly connections to water and sewer services; encompasses three federally regulated washes: and was set to be the gateway to a huge mixed-use master-planned community that Park may propose this year.

St. John said the district would not have SFB money for land until July 1 and even then the money is not guaranteed.

SFB Executive Director John Arnold agreed the money is not guaranteed, but said it may be possible he could provide acquisition money before July 1. That would depend on the funding level set by the Legislature for new schools plus the agency’s cash flow for $230 million in projects that are under way.

St. John told the board that, at the request of Board President Diana Kellermeyer, he recently asked the SFB’s Arnold,“if we condemn La Can-da, do they have $1.6 million to pay for it and the answer was ‘no.’ I asked if they have the money to build a second high school and the answer was ‘no.’ It depends on whether the Legislature actually gives them more money, which would be available on July 1.”

The $1.6 million figure is based on an SFB appraisal that the land is worth just under $25,000 an acre.

Park told St. John the company was asking $300,000 an acre. St. John said commercial property in the area is selling for more than $200,000 an acre. For example, a parcel the district is swapping to Rancho Sahuarita on the northeast corner of Sahuarita Road and Rancho Sahuarita Boulevard was appraised at $250,000 an acre.

St. John told the board he consulted with district lawyer Spencer Smith, who said if the district condemns the site, it could take title to the land within several months but would have to pay at least the $1.6 million at that time.

Another lawyer unconnected with this issue, Deputy Pima County Attorney Terri Roberts, said typically when a government agency files legal documents to condemn land, it must deposit with the Clerk of the Superior Court enough money to cover the appraised value of the land. That would enable the agency to take temporary title to the land and in this case SUSD could begin to build a school. When the court sets a price for the land, the property owner would be paid any difference and the government agency would take final title.

St. John said “if we condemn the property...we have to give them the $1.6 million, and we don’t have the money. We are in a box. The school board could spend some of its precious bond money and front the SFB. I would not recommend it, but I know they have asked school districts to do that.”

St. John said that if the district were asked to front land-acquisition money, he would remind the SFB that, in his opinion, it grossly undervalued the worth of land donated by Rancho Sahuarita for Anza Trail School.

A state administrative law judge recently sided with the SFB on that issue and the SFB board will consider whether to accept that decision at its May meeting in Tucson. That decision meant a loss of nearly $300,000 to the school district and has hurt Rancho Sahuarita in terms of its income tax position, St. John said.

St. John said the SFB low-balls the value of property and so “nobody is going to give them property. Nobody wants to work with them.”

St. John at the board meeting said, “I apologize to the community for saying ‘the community is not stepping up,’” referring to a comment he made in frustration that was published April 9.

Pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-9738