By Mark Massara mark.massara@sierraclub.org

DID WATSONVILLE OFFICIALS COMMIT FRAUD IN PURSUIT OF MILLENIUM HIGH SCHOOL? COMMISSION DEMANDS ANSWERS

The Commission's planned review of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) regarding the controversial new high school development proposed on environmentally sensitive habitat west of Hwy #1 in Watsonville in Santa Cruz County hit a serious snag last week. CW readers will recall the issue from a long article in last month's CW. The MOU was meant to confirm in writing the promise of the City of Watsonville not to attempt to convert and develop additional agricultural lands west of Hwy #1 in the area of the high school. The MOU is designed to calm the fears of critics who believe the high school will induce suburban sprawl into a rural, agricultural area.

Sierra Club's Santa Cruz Chapter continued to argue that the MOU is nothing more than paper promises, and not even as significant as the existing land use regulations it replaces, which were themselves specifically designed to prevent the City from attempting to convert farms west of Hwy #1.

Worse, a very damaging "smoking gun" memo from School Superintendent John Casey (dated March 31, 2000) came to light which appears to indicate that the School and the City had deliberately misled the Commission regarding many assumptions involving the school. In the memo, which angered numerous Commissioners, Casey states that the school board will now pursue "our original proposal" for a 30-acre school within an old CalTrans aeronautic review envelope.

The problem here is two-fold. First, the City doesn't have a school design within an approved aviation study envelope. The representation is a fiction concocted to avoid a new review of the Commission approved school site. The Commission has required the study because the proposed school site lies directly below the Watsonville airport flight path and poses extreme danger to students and school employees. The Commission specifically required a new CalTrans aviation review. Casey's memo explicitly indicates an attempt by the City to avoid such a study.

Second, and worse, the City had previously dismissed several other better suited, less environmentally damaging altneratives to the wetlands site for the proposed high school because they were "too small." The City vigorously maintained they had to build the high school on the wetlands site because it was at least 50-acres, the minimum necessary for the school given the number of students.

From the Casey memo it appears that the City and School Board knew all along that the school would be only 30-acres in size, and merely used the bigger envelope as a ruse to avoid using better situated alternative sites and to manipulate the Commission into approving the wetlands site. It is not clear whether highly regarded Assemblyman Fred Keeley, who urged the Commission to support the project, knew of the memo's contents or the real intent of the developers.

In any case, the deception worked. Temporarily, at least. Last month the Commission failed to require the school to be constructed in a better location and approved the wetlands site for the new school. The subsequent Casey memo appears however to more accurately reflect the actual position of the school board. As such, it is extremely troubling.

The entire project is now in jepordy. The Commission has continued the MOU issue and will take the matter up again next month.