In 2008, the school district formed a 7/11 Committee, an advisory committee pursuant to California Ed Code which governs the use and sale of surplus school district properties to advise the school district regarding an alternative use for District surplus or real property prior to its disposition by sale, lease, or rental. According to Ed Code, this committee shall consist of not less than seven (7) nor more than eleven (11) members. The committee must represent a cross-section of the community.
This is similar to the situation at Grande where the school district got caught playing fast and loose with the law under a scheme in which it would swap Grande for property outside of the city at the Fairfield School. That scheme was perpetrated by the former Superintendent David Murphy and former CBO Tahir Ahad. However, the district would eventually reverse itself, retain the property, and then worked diligently with the neighbors to come up with a subdivided and entitled property that the district can now sell.
The district due to the down turn in the real estate market has not acted to sell Nugget Fields. The Duffels sold Wildhorse to Wildhorse Group LLC, but prior to that, they had originally agreed to an MOU back in September 1994 with the city of Davis and the school district.
According to the Davis Enterprise on Sunday, “the Duffels’ attorney, J. Dennis McQuaid of San Francisco, maintains that the MOU included a provision to identify a 9-acre school site as a condition of the city’s approval of the Wildhorse project.”
If construction of the school had not commenced by June 30, 2009, the MOU supposedly would allow the Duffels the right to repurchase the school at the price paid by the district at the time.
When the Wildhorse owners came to an agreement with the city, they donated $300,000 to the city’s open space fund and the parcel of land to the Davis School District in exchange for expedited building permits.
Writes the Davis Enterprise:
“The Duffels’ current claim, filed March 3, appears to be based on a contention that even though they conveyed the Wildhorse development agreement to another company in 1995, they did not give up the right to ultimately reclaim the property under the terms of the 1994 MOU. “
The school district maintains that the 1999 MOU with the Wildhorse Group supercedes the 1994 MOU with the Duffels.
From the standpoint of this community, the Duffels do it no favors and their timing for this action could not possibly be worse. The district is cash strapped for general fund dollars. The district cannot use surplus property for general fund money, but can use it for facility upgrades. Nugget Fields is one of the very few assets the district owns that it can use for its vast facility needs.
Moreover as the district contends, it is unclear that the MOU between the district and the Duffels would survive the ownership change. Clearly the Wildhorse Group LLC made their own agreement to donate it to the school district thereby suggesting that they had gained control of the 9-acre parcel and that should have negated any previous agreements. It is unclear how that MOU could possibly survive the change in ownership.
Thus the claim that the Duffels has seems specious to begin with. All this action by the Duffels will do is consume the school district in legal matters, when it should be figuring out how to save money and maximize its return for its surplus property in order to best serve the students of this school district and the community.
The Duffels show themselves to be selfish and greedy. There is nothing to be gained by pursuing this other than denying the school district the means to upgrade their facilities.
This manuevre will ultimately fail and all it will succeed in doing is causing the district some headaches trying to combat it while bringing out a large amount of ill-will to the Duffels who will be viewed by most in the community as greedy villains.
It is one thing to have land use disputes in a community, but when a developer attempts to use a legal loophole to gain land to be used for development at the expense of the school district, this community will frown upon it and it seems likely that even in the most remote possibility that they succeed, the community will not forget this transgression and allow this outrage to stand.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David–this is the most poorly-edited story you’ve posted in a while. So many typos, missing words, mismatched tenses and other errors that it’s downright distracting. Your stories are always error-filled, but this one is the current record holder. I thought you’d gotten an editor!
“David–this is the most poorly-edited story you’ve posted in a while. So many typos, missing words, mismatched tenses and other errors that it’s downright distracting. Your stories are always error-filled, but this one is the current record holder. I thought you’d gotten an editor!”
I didn’t find the occasional errors distracting at all…
“I didn’t find the occasional errors distracting at all…”
Me neither. I didn’t know this was an English class.
Sounds to me like Crilly just volunteered to proof-read David’s stories. Those of us who don’t notice mismatched tenses and typos are perhaps just too busy absorbing all the facts that always seem to be missing in the”edited” media. It must be a big job, for just one guy, to get all the facts straight and written up on a daily basis . I have volunteered my photographic skills to help keep this fine blog going. Maybe Crilly has the skills to correct a few writing errors and lend David’s fact filled writing the credibility needed move Davis’ well educated populace. GO DAVID !
What erors?
Seems to me that Crilly wanted to embarrass rather than help David. Had he simply wanted to help, he would not have posted the message publicly but rather would have privately emailed him with some suggestions, or at least that’s what I would’ve done.
[b]CRILL[/b]: [i]”Your stories are always error-filled, but this one is the current record holder.”[/i]
I didn’t find that many mistakes in this story. It’s not my job to edit David’s work. But if he wants some suggestions, here are eight:
1. [i]”Due to the Naylor Act, the district needed to find a use for the property or decide that it was officially [b]surplus, i.e.[/b] it had no educational use for the property, and it could be forced to sell it to a public concern, the City or County, for a fraction of its value.[/i]
Those are two sentences run together. It should be, “… it was officially surplus: That is, it had no educational use …”
2. [i]”… the MOU supposedly would allow the Duffels the right [b]to repurchase the school[/b] at the price paid by the district at the time.”[/i]
Minor word error. Should be, “… to repurchase the [u]school site[/u] ….”
3. [i]”The school district maintains that the 1999 MOU with the Wildhorse Group [b]supercedes[/b] the 1994 MOU with the Duffels.”[/i]
Common spelling error: It should be “supersedes.”
4. [i]”Clearly the Wildhorse Group LLC made [b]their[/b] own agreement to donate it to the school [b]district thereby[/b] suggesting that [b]they[/b] had gained control of the 9-acre parcel and that should have negated any previous agreements. [/i]
Singular-plural confusion and a missing comma: This sentence should read, “Clearly the Wildhorse Group LLC made [b]its[/b] own agreement to donate it to the school district[b],[/b] thereby suggesting that it had gained control of the 9-acre parcel and that should have negated any previous agreements.”
5. [i]”Thus [b]the claim that the Duffels has seems[/b] specious to begin with.”[/i]
Awkward. Better read, “Thus, the Duffels’ claim is specious.” (Note: Things never “seem specious,” because that is redundant. Specious means that something is not what it seems to be.)
6. [i]”All this action by the Duffels will do is [b]consume[/b] the school district in legal matters, when it should be figuring out how to save money and maximize its return for its surplus property [b]in order to best serve the students of this school district and the community[/b].”[/i]
Consume is a strange verb, but not necessarily wrong. The preposition at the end is unnecessary. I would go with this: “This action by the Duffels will waste two of the district’s precious resources: time and money.”
7. [i]”This [b]manuevre[/b] will ultimately [b]fail and all[/b] it will succeed in doing is [b]causing[/b] the district some [b]headaches trying[/b] to combat [b]it while[/b] bringing [b]out[/b] a large amount of ill-will to the [b]Duffels who[/b] will be viewed by most in the community as greedy villains.[/i]
This is badly written. Here is an improved version: “This legal [b]maneuver[/b] by the Duffels will ultimately fail. They will only succeed in wounding the district’s finances and bringing a large amount of ill-will on themselves. Most of the community will see the Duffels as greedy villains.”
8. [i]”It is one thing to have land use disputes in a community, but when a developer attempts to use a legal loophole to gain land to be used for development at the expense of the school district, this community will frown upon [b]it and it[/b] seems likely that even in the most remote possibility that they succeed, the community will not forget this transgression and allow this outrage to stand.”[/i]
This run-on sentence would work better broken up. Here is my suggestion: “It is one thing to have land use disputes in a community. It is something else when a developer uses a legal loophole to gain land for development at the expense of the school district. This community will frown on that. In the unlikely event that this scheme succeeds, the community will not forgive the Duffels.”
“I didn’t find that many mistakes in this story. It’s not my job to edit David’s work.”
But I will anyway…..
What I really want to know is:
1. Who agreed to a school site donation that’s too small, wrongly situated, etc., in the first place.
2. Do the city and school district have lawyers good enough to assure we didn’t agree to the situation that the Duffels now claim–and that it truly is specious? I hope the district is more confident than this suggests: “Moreover as the district contends, it is unclear that the MOU between the district and the Duffels would survive the ownership change.”
But, thanks anyway for the English pointers.
This is all veering off topic, but I’d attribute any grammar and spelling errors to infant-induced sleep deprivation.
My question is, does anyone know a specific reason Duffel would want this property back? Is there a development proposal in the works?
[i]”My question is, does anyone know a specific reason (the Duffel brothers) would want this property back?”[/i]
Is it not obvious they would subdivide it to build new homes? If so, it would likely be extremely profitable, if they get the land back for free.
What I don’t know is its zoning status. I have a paper zoning map and it shows that property as “DJUSD Property (Vacant).” It is a part of the larger “Planned Development 3-89,” which covers the entirety of Wild Horse. If you look at the zoning map ([url]http://cityofdavis.org/cdd/pdfs/planning/forms/zoning_map.pdf[/url]) (warning: giant download) on the city’s website, that property is left blank.
If I had to guess, it cannot be subdivided into a residential development (or kept whole and developed into a residential usage) without the authorization of the planning commission and/or city council.
[i]”1. Who agreed to a school site donation that’s [b]too small[/b], wrongly situated, etc., in the first place.”[/i]
Too small? It’s bigger than most of the existing elementary school sites in Davis.
I’m not sure exactly why you also think it is “wrongly situated.” Yes, it is next to Pole Line Road, which is busy. But it would have access on Moore, and that is comparable (or even less trafficked) than W. 14th Street (North), Anderson Road (Chavez), Sycamore Lane (Willett), Shasta Drive (Patwin), Alhambra Drive (Korematsu), Lillard Drive (Montgomery) and E. 8th Street (erstwhile Valley Oak).
Thought I’d read something awhile back about the site being too small; I stand corrected. I meant the location with respect the other schools, rather than Pole Line traffic. Why aren’t we building a school on the site?
[i]”Why aren’t we building a school on the site?”[/i]
Too few kids.
One thing which has changed somewhat over the years is elementary schools have gotten a bit larger in their total student populations compared with 25 years ago and more. So you have more kids concentrated at fewer campuses.
I guess the reason we need to have more populated campuses today is because we now pay administrators and other non-classroom employees so much more money than we did when most of the elementary schools in Davis were built or were sited.
I recall that the overhead cost of Valley Oak (not counting any maintenance, landscape or janitorial expenses) was about $400,000 when it closed. The district decided that we could not afford that overhead and open Korematsu. So non-classroom overhead (the cost of the principal, the secretaries, the library, the nurse, cafeteria workers and so on) became the principal reason they shuttered Valley Oak. (My suggestion at the time was to hire one staff and make the V.O. campus a satellite of Korematsu to save on overhead.)
By contrast, when school principals used to be paid just a small amount more than teachers and the other staff got minimum wages and no benefits, it was possible to have much smaller elementary schools and still balance the budget. But that is no longer the case.
Just Saying, you did read something a while back saying that the site was too smallfor a school, I know because I remember reading that article too.
rusty49 & JustSaying:
9 ac is the standard DJUSD footprint for an elementary school. The site is sized appropriately. The problem is we don’t need another elementary school.
Actually, I’ve offered to help proofread David’s columns as long as two years ago. Never got a response on that. My comment wasn’t meant to embarrass David at all. It was definitely intended as a light-weight observation. Didn’t realize it would cause such a stir 😉 Fortunately, David’s skin is thicker than that of some of his readers!