GILROY
– Day Road residents leery over the prospect of neighboring a
new high school want Gilroy Unified School District to hold a
public hearing before it decides to purchase the 50-acre site just
outside of town.
GILROY – Day Road residents leery over the prospect of neighboring a new high school want Gilroy Unified School District to hold a public hearing before it decides to purchase the 50-acre site just outside of town.
About a dozen residents appeared before trustees Thursday night at a regular school board session, asking the district to set a date where it would explain the criteria it is using to select a new high school site and allow the community to ask questions and make comments.
“I think it’s a reasonable request,” said Cammie Brown, a resident of the Day Road area for the past four years. “They should want to give the community of Gilroy a chance to evaluate all the sites, unless they have something to hide.”
Since the request was not on Thursday’s agenda, the state’s open meeting laws restricted GUSD officials from approving a public hearing date Thursday. In an interview after the session, Superintendent Edwin Diaz and school board President Jim Rogers said they were open to the group’s request, but wanted to confer with legal counsel before setting a hearing date.
Diaz and Rogers rejected any idea that the district has been operating behind the scenes. They said the neighbors have had opportunities before to review the district’s criteria for selecting a site.
In recent weeks, GUSD held a facilities study session and a joint meeting with the city regarding its future construction plans. A recommendation to pursue the purchase of one of four future high school sites was supposed to happen as early as May 1, the GUSD’s next board meeting. Public discussion and comment would take place before trustees cast their votes.
“It feels like this is another delay tactic on their part,” Rogers said. “If they want a meeting to clear the air, I think it’s appropriate we have that meeting.”
The Day Road neighbors sent a letter to the City of Gilroy and GUSD weeks ago questioning the process the agencies are using to annex the land into Gilroy proper.
The 60-acre parcel, 10 acres of which would house a Catholic parish and school, lies just north of Gilroy’s northwest boundary inside Santa Clara County. The parcel is eligible to receive city services, but its current county zoning is residential and agricultural.
The neighbors want GUSD to do a full-scale environmental review before the city decides to annex the land, but the school district doesn’t want to blindly invest in such a review until after annexation. If the land is not annexed into the city, building a new school there would be a more complicated and expensive process, Rogers believes.
“We have no problem with doing an environmental review, and we will do an environmental review. We have to do an environmental review. The question is what’s going to happen first,” Rogers said.
After two previous delays, the Gilroy City Council was slated to review and decide on the annexation request at Monday’s meeting.
However, Glen-Loma Group, the prominent developer which applied for the annexation, has asked for a 45-day continuance. Glen-Loma officials would use the time to determine whether they need to amend their application, according to a city staff report.
In the past, Mayor Tom Springer has said he’d like the GUSD board to decide on a high school site before the city proceeds with the annexation decision.
