At least 60 Saugus community members attended the Saugus Union School District’s asset management advisory committee’s public hearing Wednesday night, seven of whom spoke during public comment. After another editing discussion, the committee members decided they need to come back May 7 for another review.
Frank Smathers, a Saugus resident, said during the public comment that he would like to see the “unique mid-century modern” buildings preserved for future generations to admire.
“Seismic reports indicate at the cost of retrofitting the campus is expensive. That is true,” said Smathers. “However, it would also seem logical, that demolishing the current structure, and replacing it with entirely new buildings of similar quality, would be even more expensive. Santa Clarita Elementary School is a uniquely designed landmark.”
He said the district should be open to working with historic preservationists to find a new purpose for the property. He added that the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that works through education and advocacy to preserve the historic, architectural and cultural resources of L.A. County, had shown interest in saving the school and a representative was in attendance to speak.
“One hundred years from now, future generations will thank us for protecting these historical buildings as monuments to American ingenuity,” said Smathers.
Andrew Salimian, director of advocacy for the L.A. Conservancy, said Smathers did invite him to the public hearing to speak on behalf of the nonprofit but it was not the first time the organization had heard about the Santa Clarita Elementary School site.
“We’ve actually have been getting a lot of emails about this place,” said Salimian. “So it’s an indication that people care about the place when they’re emailing the L.A. Conservancy about it.”
He said on his way to the public hearing he was able to stop by see the site for the first time and that it was a beautiful school and seemed to have “wonderful potential.”
“How you get there is going to be the hard part. It’s not going to be an easy process, we understand, but we have gone through this with other cities. We’re really here to offer any technical assistance we can to the district, to the committee, to the city,” said Salimian.
Santa Clarita Planning Manager Patrick Leclair spoke on behalf of the city and said, “In reviewing the draft recommendations of the committee, I’d like to clarify that it is typically not a policy of the city to enter into a short- or long-term lease for its facilities. Rather, the city typically owns facilities and operates with programs.”
He added that in a letter sent in August to the district, the city expressed interest in the recommendations regarding the school site. He said the city is committed to providing high-quality programs and services for the community and is continuously looking for ways to improve facilities and program offerings.
“The city looks forward to working on this matter with the district in the future,” said Leclair.
Two Saugus community members who spoke offered their own recommendations to the committee. Kathy Samuelson said that she would love to see parking added to the recommendation.
“If you live in the neighborhood, you know that parking overflows very badly,” said Samuelson. “People block driveways, people will move our trash cans out of the street or up on the sidewalk so they can park. It’s rather annoying.”
She said that sufficient parking should be added for whatever is settled on for the site.
Another community member, Kim Rice-Bogdan, made a recommendation that the school should be reopened and retrofitted.
She added the school should be reopened for three main reasons: the community outreach notification did not follow proper procedure, the district has not accounted for where the new potential students will go after the new developments are done, and that the estimated cost, which she said she heard was between $6 million to $25 million, to retrofit the buildings is “a small sum in comparison to building a brand-new school” that may be needed after new developments are built out.
After public comment was closed, committee member Kathi Lund led the discussion about what edits need to be done to the draft report before they proceed forward, and asked that the committee members meet on May 7 to look over the draft again before they complete their work.
“Our names are going to go on this, so I kind of feel like if I was buying a car, I wouldn’t just say fill in the blanks. I would want to see it before I signed off on it,” said Lund.
Her recommended edits were to add the pie charts that were made after the community input meeting from Oct. 30, highlight in some way where the heritage oak trees were located on the aerial view maps, clarify the order of events that led to the closure of the school, and add back the language about the property value.
Lund said that she wanted to stick to being transparent so the community and school district board could see they did their due diligence.
Saugus community member Trish Parker thanked Lund in her public comment for all the work she put into the school while she was working as the librarian and even currently sitting on the committee.
“She was the glue that held the school together. We all knew it then and I believe she has shown it now as she has worked on this committee,” said Parker. “Kathy, from my family and so many others, thank you for doing everything you have done for us and the school. For working to make sure the history of Santa Clarita Elementary will be honored, and that it will hopefully remain a pillar of the community that was built around the little school on the corner.”
