Conversations with district and city officials, letters to and from various departments within the state government, and careful reading of the Coastal Commissions suggested modifications lead the author to the conclusion that the Pajaro Valley Unified School District has no plans to have the site evaluated for airport safety and neither does the California Department of Education.
Why there won't be an aeronautics reevaluation

By Peter Nichols
pnichols@tellingthetruth.com

At the Coastal Commission's March 16, 2000 meeting in Carmel, the matter of Watsonville's Local Coastal Program amendments was heard. There were approximately 250 Watsonville residents, 11 commissioners, numerous school district and city officials, opponents, lobbyists, attorneys and any number of other interested parties looking on. The Commission rejected the LCP amendments as proposed but offered conditions that might make the city's hoped for project -- the new high school -- acceptable.

One Moment Please
The Coastal Commission meets in Carmel March 16, 2000 to hear Watsonville's Local Coastal Program ammendment application.
The school, planned within environmentally sensitive wetlands and within the coastal zone was considered to be "growth inducing" and faced some difficult scrutiny on the part of the state body whose mandate includes the protection of valuable coastal resources.

Assemblyman Fred Keeley, in whose district the planned school would be built, orchestrated a "fix" with respect to the growth inducing aspects of the project by negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) involving local governing bodies and the Coastal Commission that would, theoretically, prevent the City of Watsonville from expanding westward beyond Highway 1 in the future.

With the growth inducing aspects taken care of, there were only the two Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas to worry about. The commission was not inclined to give any ground with respect to ESHAs, so modifications were suggested that would protect wetlands on either side of the planned high school . But those modifications would also push the school's footprint north of Harkins Slough Rd. and closer to the municipal airport and even deeper into the area that had been disapproved by the Department of Transportation, Division of Aeronautics in 1987.

In the Beginning

In 1986, the City of Watsonville adopted, and the Federal Aviation Administration approved the Watsonville Municipal Airport Master Plan. Though there have been efforts to update that document, delays have left the 1986 version intact and in effect.

Within that document are maps with geometric overlays showing traffic patterns associated with this general aviation airport. Land use issues are addressed within the master plan and a chart indicating recommendations accompanies the maps.
Within that zone, Watsonville's 1986 Airport Master Plan and the Airport Land Use Planning Handbook recommend that schools, hospitals and nursing homes should not be built.
There are several areas, or zones, represented by various geometric shapes at the end of each runway under which it is recommended that land use be restricted. Aside from the obvious safety or "clear zones" extending at the end of each runway, one particular pie shaped area, beyond the end and to the left (as pilots depart) of the primary take-off runway has the most restrictive land use recommendations. That zone is labeled "C-1 ". It is analogous to a "Turning Zone" in the DOT Airport Land Use Planning Handbook which suggests similar restrictions. Within that zone, Watsonville's 1986 Airport Master Plan and the Airport Land Use Planning Handbook recommend that schools, hospitals and nursing homes should not be built. Though similar restrictions are recommended to the left and right of each end of the airport's two runways, the C-1 zones have additional restrictive land use recommendations.

One Moment Please
From the 1986 Airport Master Plan, the area where the new high school is planned is area "C-1". Land use recommendations within the master plan preclude schools, hospitals or nursing homes there. Airplanes take-off at full power then turn left above this site. Planes approaching in bad weather and using Localizer/NDB Monterey approach will also occupy airspace above the proposed school.

Clearly, the drafters of the 1986 Airport Master Plan had intended that no school should be located within the C-1 zone.

In 1987, just one year after the acceptance of that master plan, the Pajaro Valley Unified School District began its effort to build a school at Harkins Slough and Lee Roads, on property owned by Ralph and Kathleen Edwards, inside the restrictive C-1 approach/departure pattern and turning zone.

The school district, which earlier had identified a need for a third high school, had placed the Harkins Slough Rd. site at the top of its list of possible sites, and on November 17, 1987 requested an aeronautics evaluation of the property with the intention of acquiring the site for a comprehensive high school.

That evaluation, conducted by the Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division looked at a general area centered within the Edwards property. The DOT determined that the location was not suitable for a school, so the district began to look elsewhere.

One Moment Please
Willie Yahiro, a Watsonville Insurance salesman and Pajaro Valley Unified School District board trustee in February, 2000 at the site of the district's 1988 choice for a high school. Yahiro was on the board and voted with the majority to eliminate the Green Valley Rd. site as a possibility for the district's new high school.

The district selected a site on Green Valley Rd. in 1988 and proceeded with Department of Education approval requirements. A neighborhood group --The Green Valley Action Committee -- was formed to protest the district's intentions. The group was so organized and vocal they succeeded in turning the district away from that project. The group subsequently became an instrumental force on the committee whose task it was to evaluate alternative sites and make recommendations to the school board.

The "Site Selection Committee" made up of community members and district and local government officials identified 11 potential school sites during their meetings in 1991 and 1992.
The DOT had 'reservations' and 'some safety and noise concerns' about the Harkins Slough Rd. site.
The favored site emerging from that process was the same site that had been rejected as not suitable in 1987, the Edwards property at Harkins Slough and Lee Roads.

On December 19, 1991, the Department of Education on behalf of the PVUSD requested an aeronautics evaluation of the 11 possible school sites. That evaluation was performed by DOT Aviation Consultant Dan Gargas on January 17, 1992.

That evaluation determined that five of the sites were undesirable. Two had no safety concerns. Four, however, had "some safety and noise concerns" and the district should pursue alternatives before selecting one of those. According to the DOT, those four sites were considered "suitable for a school". One of those four was the Edwards property on Harkins Slough Rd.

With Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division approval in hand, the school district proceeded with efforts to acquire the property with the purpose of constructing a comprehensive high school. An Environmental Impact Report (EIR) required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was prepared and released to the public in 1997. Enter the California Coastal Commission

While the school district made plans for the Harkins Slough Rd. site, the Coastal Commission District Office warned of problems. On the record are numerous warnings from the local staff about Coastal Act concerns raised relating to the proposed development within the coastal zone. Warnings about the difficulty of the project were communicated but were largely unheeded. The local Coastal Commission staff had serious reservations about the project and repeatedly requested that the district select an alternative site, or at the very least include the local staff in meetings so that Coastal Commission concerns could be represented.

One Moment Please
Tami Grove, Coastal Commission Deputy Director and Charles Lester, District Manager confer in their Santa Cruz office prior to the March 16 hearing.
Watsonville's Local Coastal Program, certified in 1983, placed severe restrictions to land use on the proposed site. Those restrictions precluded development of a public school, so the city would have to amend its Local Coastal Program to allow the more intensive land use. Those amendments were prepared and the city applied to the commission for acceptance of the amended LCP in 1999.

While preparing for the Coastal Commission hearing on the Amended LCP, the Coastal Commission District Office saw the possibility that a school might be suitably located on the proposed site, but away from Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas to the east and west of where the school district had planned to build. In order to keep the school out of the wetlands, the development footprint might be pushed north of the planned area. Noting that the school would be closer to the municipal airport, Charles Lester, Coastal Commission District Manager wrote to Marlin Beckwith, Program Manager, Department of Transportation Aeronautics Program requesting an explanation of the conflicting 1987 and 1992 evaluations. That letter set off the chain of events that led to the Commission's condition as part of the amended Local Coastal Program to require an aeronautics evaluation of the entire site. The response from Dan Gargas to Lester's letter, and comments by the aviation consultant reported in the local print media at about the same time provided an explanation for the differing evaluations performed by the DOT. The approval issued in the 1992 letter to the Department of Education was "luke warm" at best since DOT had "reservations", and "safety and noise concerns" were noted. And that approval was for a narrow area adjacent to Harkins Slough Rd. as
Gargas insisted that development outside of that building envelope would invalidate his evaluation.
represented by the map with the assorted rectangles. Gargas was clear in his letter to the commission staff as well as comments to the press that the area represented by the rectangle along Harkins Slough Rd. was the area he had evaluated. And he insisted that development outside of that building envelope would invalidate his evaluation. The 1992 evaluation was good for five years, and in 1997, the school district requested an extension. The 1992 approval extension was provided in a June, 1997 letter from Gargas to the Pajaro Valley Unified School District.

DOT Releases the Real 1992 Map

Though Gargas had insisted that all documentation from the 1992 evaluation had disappeared, a formal public information request was sent to the Department of Transportation in late March of 2000. A number of documents were released, among them was a previously unreleased map represented by those responding to the request as having been the original enclosure with the 1992 Evaluation Letter from Dan Gargas. Similar to the official 1992 Evaluation Map, 11 sites were indicated by hand drawn rectangles.

Unlike the official version, this map was dated, 1/17/92, the date of the evaluation.
But there were three important difference between this newly released map and the official one that had been included in the district's EIR. First, the map appeared to be "work product" in a different hand writing than the official version. Second, unlike the official version, this map was dated, 1/17/92, the date of the evaluation.

And finally, The rectangles represented similar areas when compared to rectangles on the official map with three exceptions, sites #2, #4, #6 each of which received approval though unspecified "safety and noise concerns" were noted.

Of particular interest is site number six, the Edwards property on Harkins Slough Rd. That rectangle representing that site on the original map was drawn even closer to Harkins Slough Rd., farther from the airport, and actually straddling Harkins Slough Rd. and encompassing portions of the state Fish and Game Preserve south of the proposed site.

Gargas said the original map is the one he used to evaluate the site and that the official version was actually transcribed later by someone at the school district.

The Coastal Commission's Aeronautics Evaluation Condition

With the commission hearing approaching, The local commission staff were preparing modifications within their report that focused on preserving portions of Struve and Hanson Slough that had been identified as Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Areas.

While their primary task was to insure that any LCP amendments be consistent with the Coastal Act, they also sought to find a development envelope where a school could be located. The result was approximately 40 acres of the 120 total acres located on the crest of the hill above the wetlands and stretching north to within one half mile of the airport's main runway.

Communication between the commission staff and the DOT Aeronautics Program appeared to raise more questions than were answered.

There was concern about the thoroughness of the 1992 evaluation, the lack of an administrative record, the changed circumstances since then and the conflict with the 1987 evaluation. Communication between the commission staff and the DOT Aeronautics Program appeared to raise more questions than were answered.

If the commission were to recommend development of land with questionable suitability relating to the airport, clearly a definitive evaluation would be required. So, a condition was inserted into the report requiring that the DOT evaluate the entire site and determine where on the subject property, if anywhere, a school could be safely located.

In its original form, the condition appeared within the Coastal Commission's Final Report and referenced questions about the 1992 aeronautics evaluation, the missing documentation and changed circumstances since 1992.

Prior to the commission hearing, the issue of a more northerly school location and aeronautics evaluation was considered by some within the district as a deal breaker. The entire site had been disapproved by DOT in 1987 and there was no real expectations that a new evaluation would be different. The 1992 evaluation, was performed with DOE and PVUSD officials actually inside the airplane Gargas used to fly the traffic patterns. And Gargas admitted to not having consulted the DOT aeronautics land use hand book in performing his evaluation as required by current DOT evaluation guidelines. Since lobbying efforts on the part of the district and the DOE had apparently been helpful in winning the approval in 1992, a new evaluation of the southern portion would be problematic. There was serious concern that a new evaluation would not get approval. According to Tami Grove, Coastal Commission District Director, the school district objected to the language contained in the condition saying the airport safety issue was the responsibility of the State Department of Education. The commission staff's substitute language found within the report's addendum, though appearing to be more demanding, did clearly put the burden on the DOE. Within the addendum report, several paragraphs of background information including references to the Coastal Act were offered supporting the need for an new evaluation and the need for the Coastal Commission to insure safety for any development within the coastal zone.

After the Coastal Commission Hearing

Following the commission hearing, the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian published an extensive piece on the problems that lay ahead for the school district. Within that article were several telling comments made by city, state and district officials involved in the project that indicated a desire to rely on the previous evaluations which found a portion of the site acceptable.

When the commission hearing was completed, and after the celebration, reality set in with respect to all the issues remaining for the school district. It became apparent that a new school would be a long time coming if the district were to negotiate to purchase the entire property and begin work on new CEQA documentation (an EIR) and proceed through all the public hearings. It became clear, that there needed to be another plan.

If the district could soon begin building some school facilities on land approved by the Coastal Commission and previously approved by the 1992/1997 aeronautics evaluation, they could consider building on the northern portion of the property at a later date. That plan would get classrooms up and running in the near future and start to relieve some of the district's overcrowding.

They would first need to find a way to avoid the evaluation requirement for the area previously evaluated. And then they would have to convince the Department of Education that the area previously evaluated was 55 or so acres and not the 18 to 20 acres outlined by the "rectangle" on the 1992 Dan Gargas evaluation map. With that, the property could be purchased and construction could begin in a timely fashion. The northern portion of the property could be dealt with later. Certainly the possibility existed that the airport might some day be closed down freeing the district to proceed with development plans in that area. In fact, there have been hints from some officials and parties involved in the Watsonville MOU negotiations of a "hidden agenda" to close the airport. Clearly, There is considerable support for an airport free Watsonville and placing a high school right under the take-off pattern might hasten its demise.

The District's Plan

During meetings in Sacramento in late March, attended by officials of the School Facilities Planning Division and PVUSD Superintendent John Casey, it was made clear that the state Department of Education saw no need in having the property reevaluated for aeronautic issues. John Dominguez, a consultant with SFPD and others indicated that though the Coastal Commission conditions called for an evaluation, it wasn't necessarily required.

The district's adoption of such a plan was outlined in a March 31, 2000 memorandum included in a weekly update to school board trustees. In the memo, Casey outlined the strategy formulated in those March meetings. There would be two "phases" to the project. The first was to get DOE approval "without taking time for an aeronautic evaluation" of the lower 30 acre portion of the property, thus allowing the district to secure the required state funding.

Phase two would involve the northern portion of the property and would be developed at a later time. That memo additionally revealed that the parties considered a plan to develop the northern portion without state school funding and thus without any aeronautics evaluation. That development might, the memo states, be funded with Park Bond Funds or Nature Conservancy Founds. It was not made clear if these were funding sources suggested by Assemblyman Fred Keeley who's recently authored legislation made similar funds available.

The details revealed within this memo caused the Coastal Commission to "continue" the matter of Watsonville's Memorandum of Understanding at its April 10 meeting in Long Beach. The commission was reportedly dismayed with the district's apparent lack of commitment to have the area evaluated for airport safety as well as their acceptance of approval for a 30 acre site when for years it was said that 50 acres was required. If 30 acres were enough, sites previously ruled out as too small should have been given more consideration.

The execution of this strategy was begun even before the details from the memo came to light, when PVUSD Associate Superintendent Terry McHenry wrote a letter to Jim Bush, Assistant Director of SFPD. In the letter he offers maps and documentation requested by Dominguez confirming that the district was indeed planning to build the school in the area previously approved. But that documentation had several problems.

The area McHenry suggests was planned for the school is considerably larger than that which Dan Gargas said he had evaluated in 1992. He tries to persuade Bush that the area conforms to what the DOT had approved, but he refers to DOT approval of "the southern half the property". Nowhere in the record is there any reference that the DOT ever evaluated the "southern half of the property" let alone approved it.

The local Coastal Commission staff in fact had created a composite graphic and made it part of their report, which superimposed the district's original development design over a map of the site. Over that composite, was superimposed the rectangle pulled from the 1992 evaluation map representing the area Gargas had evaluated. Clearly, the area evaluated was never large enough to fit the district's plan. And the rectangle from the original, dated, 1992 map would accommodate even less of the district's design. Following the April 10, 2000 Commission meeting that should have finalized the city's LCP approval, Superintendent Casey was quoted in the local print media as saying he was only trying to secure funding first, before going forward with the aeronautics evaluation. Though he didn't say he intended to request a new aeronautics evaluation, he was quoted by Trina Kleist, the article's author, as saying, "We fully intend, once we get the funding, to do exactly what the Coastal Commission is asking". At conflict with these statements, and confirming that officials within the City of Watsonville and the school district viewed the evaluation requirements differently than did the Coastal Commission, were comments made by John Doughty, Watsonville Development Director. He responded to questions in an interview on April 10, 2000, the same day the commission was to approve the MOU prior to discovering the Casey memo. At a school board meeting, April 12, 2000, Superintendent Casey was confronted by members of an opposition group concerned about student safety. They insisted that he request the evaluation and accused him of being "disingenuous" in his remarks about what he intended to do. That confrontation was reported in the Watsonville Register Pajaronian April 13, 2000. In late April, 2000, Coastal Commission Deputy Director Tami Grove met with officials of the Department of Education, School Facilities Planning Division regarding what she described as a misunderstanding about the evaluation. She said they had not seen the exact language of the conditions but were indeed trying to move forward without the evaluation. She also admitted that they might be able to do it.

In an April 21, 2000 letter from Grove to Casey, she asks two questions framed around the airport evaluation. "Is the District going to request that a new safety evaluation be done for the entire Area C? If so, when?"

Shortly after that letter, Charles Lester, Coastal Commission District Manager fielded a call from Assemblyman Fred Keeley's assistant, Reed Addis requesting, in the name of the City of Watsonville, that the mid-May Coastal Commission meeting be postponed until June. The Watsonville MOU matter, continued until the May meeting in Santa Rosa was postponed until the June meeting in Santa Barbara.

On May 1, Delain Eastin, State Superintendent of Public Instruction wrote concerning this matter in response to a letter from Sandra Nichols, safety group spokesperson. As the top official for the Department of Education, her comments reveal further that the DOE will not require that an evaluation be conducted for a site previously approved.

Legal Considerations

Once the Memorandum of Understanding is agreed to and signed by the Peter Douglas, Executive Director of The Coastal Commission and the city accepts the modifications -- and assuming there are no law suits challenging the commission's action -- the matter of the city's Local Coastal Program will be final. The City of Watsonville will then be free to issue permits to the school district. Of the two conditions that must be satisfied prior to the permit process, the aeronautics evaluation and the full geotechnical report, the commission might not be able to claim jurisdiction regarding the aeronautics evaluation under Section 30253 of the Coastal Act. A careful reading of that section indicates that the commission may have overstepped its bounds.

Clearly, it would be difficult to make the argument that putting a school under busy traffic pattern air space would cause "risks to life and property in areas of high geologic, flood, and fire hazard" and violate the intent of Section 30253. And neither would it prevent an ability to "Assure stability and structural integrity,".

The commission's condition for aeronautics evaluation also refers to the California Department of Education Code 17215 which mandates such an evaluation if a district plans to purchase property for school use within two miles of an airport runway.

Here again, the commission may have overreached. There is no provision within that Ed. Code section relating to reevaluating a property due to changed circumstances, inadequate documentation or overly politicized evaluations. There appears to be no provisions for a reevaluation under any circumstances. There is nothing within this Ed Code section governing the DOE or the DOT with regard to a school district request for a reevaluation when one has already been performed. Referring to the language within the conditions, the district could "request an aeronautics evaluation" from the DOE and the DOE could say one was not required.

But with the condition firmly a part of the commission's March 16 decision to allow the city's LCP to be amended, the matter may once again come before the commissioners. If the city were to issue a coastal development permit without the condition being met, any citizen who formally opposed the project (appeared before the commission or documented their opposition as part of that public record) could appeal the issuance of such a permit to the commission. Grove indicated that if no citizen made such an appeal, her office would. As was predicted at the commission hearing by Commission Desser, the city and school district would once again face the commissioners. They would presumably request that the commission allow their project to go forward claiming that the DOE had signed off on the safety aspects of the project. If the commission were to refuse, a potential precedent setting law suit could be the result. And the high school the district has sought to build for the past 13 years would be further delayed.

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