The next scheduled meeting for the Saugus Union School District asset management advisory committee tasked with recommending what to do with the site of Santa Clarita Elementary School has been postponed.
Originally set to meet for the fourth time Oct. 9, the committee’s meeting has been postponed until next month. The new dates are either Nov. 6 or 13, according to Lisa Eichman, vice chair of the committee.
“We will be postponing the upcoming Asset Management Advisory Committee meeting for Oct. 9, 2024,” reads an email from Shellie Gibson, an administrative assistant with the district who is acting as secretary for the committee.
Superintendent Colleen Hawkins was not immediately available to comment on Tuesday on why the meeting was canceled roughly a week before it was slated to be held, and postponed until after the Nov. 5 election.
Multiple committee members said they were not consulted prior to being told that the meeting will not be held as scheduled.
The Oct. 9 meeting is still listed on the district’s website as the next scheduled meeting as of Tuesday afternoon.
The postponement comes two weeks after the third committee meeting ended abruptly due to an angry crowd of community members who contended that the site is set to be used for low-income housing. People at last month’s meeting said they found out about that supposed plan via social media.
District officials said those social media posts were ill-informed and that no plans for low-income housing have been discussed.
What was on the agenda for that night — before district officials called the meeting after about 15 minutes when community members began shouting over each other while the committee tried to keep order — was a presentation on the potential for the land to be used for teacher housing. That presentation did not take place. A school tour was also scheduled, but that also did not happen.
The meeting was moved from a portable classroom to an outside area at Santa Clarita Elementary to allow for the large crowd to assemble and make public comments more accessible.
Nick Heinlein, assistant superintendent of business services, speculated after the meeting that the verbiage in the presentation may have led to a misunderstanding, but said nothing on the agenda indicated there would be any talk of low-income housing.
“There is no discussion of low-income housing at this location. It’s not on the agenda. I’m not sure why there’s posts that say that,” Heinlein said. “I can say with confidence, we’ve never discussed low-income housing.”
The presentation, roughly six slides, focused on teachers and other school district staff being priced out of renting or owning homes in or near the districts where they work. It referenced legislation, such as the Teacher Housing Act of 2016, that has made it more manageable for a school district to “facilitate affordable housing for employees,” as well as some of the financing mechanisms, including tax credits and both private and public financing.
On the Saugus district website, an FAQ was created regarding the advisory committee, with one of the questions asking, “Is low-income housing being considered for the property?”
“No. Statutorily authorized employee housing options for Saugus Union School District employees were scheduled to be presented to the committee at the Sept. 18, 2024, meeting,” reads the answer to that question. “All statutorily authorized use options are presented so the committee can make informed recommendations to the governing board. No low-income housing proposals have been submitted or are being considered.”
The committee and its process are legal requirements of the state after the Saugus district governing board voted to close down Santa Clarita Elementary in March, due to concerns about the potential cost of retrofitting the site built in the 1960s for earthquake compliance.
The roles of the asset management committee, which is made of community volunteers who live in the district, includes: reviewing enrollment projections and other data to determine surplus space and real property; establishing a list of acceptable community uses; provide hearings for input on those plans; and giving the board a list of recommended uses based on those steps.
The committee, by statute, is made of a business owner, a landowner, a teacher, an administrator, a parent, an expert in environmental impact or legal contracts and an at-large member who represents the district’s demographic.
Officials said after the Sept. 18 meeting that the next one would likely be held in a larger space to accommodate a crowd.
Potential city involvement
At a recent Santa Clarita City Council meeting, Councilman Jason Gibbs asked city staff to look at the possibility of either acquiring the land or having a memorandum of understanding for a joint-use project with the district, such as a library.
Also the parent of two children in the Saugus district, with his oldest having gone to preschool at Santa Clarita Elementary just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gibbs said the last advisory committee meeting was a “telling show of what people want.”
“The community is very interested in leaving a legacy at that school as a place to gather,” Gibbs said in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Nothing official has been done just yet, Gibbs added, and the city must first wait for the district to go through its mandated process of determining what to do with potential surplus land.
