Board OKs $45M land swap to move elementary school
Colton Joint Unified School District leaders have agreed to swap land that's home to a 69-year-old Bloomington elementary school for property nearby in a $45 million deal that will cover the cost of building a new elementary school in the unincorporated San Bernardino County town.
The district will operate Zimmerman Elementary School under a lease agreement with an Orange County developer until the new school is built.
Constructed in 1953 and last modernized eight years ago, Zimmerman serves about 560 students. The Linden Avenue school could ultimately be bordered by 2.7 million square feet of warehouses as proposed in the controversial Bloomington Business Park Specific Plan.
Howard Industrial Partners, the developer behind that plan, has agreed to swap land on Hermosa Avenue for the Zimmerman property.
“For years now,” Superintendent Frank Miranda said at the outset of the June 30 board meeting, “Bloomington has been undergoing dramatic change with the growth of the logistics industry in the area and the increasing number of large developments that create noise, traffic and air pollution.
“Our challenge as a district is how to protect our students and staff from the worse of the impacts to the greatest extent possible and also provide them with school facilities in line with our vision for continuing to grow and improve as an organization and give our students the best advantages for a successful future.”
Attorney Terry Tao, with whom the district works with on such deals, likened the land swap and ultimate relocation of Zimmerman to a family moving away from problematic neighbors.
“You can start screaming at each other,” he said, “or you can move. You can move away from the problem and the district has the opportunity to do exactly that.”
The new school is planned for 28 acres at Santa Ana and Larch avenues, a stone’s throw from the Zimmerman campus.
The proposed site is across Cedar Avenue from a warehouse.
Ana Carlos, a south Bloomington resident with three children in the Colton school district, opposed the board’s unanimous decision to “sell one of our elementary schools.”
“Is Bloomington High School at risk of being closed?” she wrote in an email. “Is Ruth O. Harris Middle School at risk of being closed? What about the air quality for the students and teachers that remain in the area?
“Another elementary school would be one-quarter of a mile away. Would they eventually combine the two, closing down Crestmore Elementary?”
Moreover, Carlos said, the new school site “would be built next to a truck stop/ fuel station,” and considering how Zimmerman is a school where parents walk their children to campus, parents “would now have to cross Cedar Avenue, a dangerous stree, with big rig traffic coming in and out because of the truck stop fueling station.”
Carlos contended the school board “is looking out for the benefit of the Bloomington Business Park developer and not our students,” and called for trustees to reverse course.
“I want a board that works for students and their community,” she concluded, “and not developers’ money.”
District leaders touted the $45 million deal as a win for all parties.
“This is not an easy decision, but it takes courage and I think we’re doing the right thing,” board member Dan Flores said June 30. “We’re protecting our kids, our students, which is our primary charge, and it’s going to kick start a bit of a renaissance here in Bloomington, with not just one school, but it could alter two, three, four schools in the district in a positive way.”
The land swap comes on the heels of Fontana and state Attorney General Rob Bonta settling a lawsuit over a 206,000-square-foot warehouse bound for property adjacent to Jurupa Hills High School.
Announced in April, that pact required Fontana to adopt stricter requirements for warehouse projects and the developer to implement substantial mitigation measures during and after construction. Furthermore, the developer is to put $210,000 into a community benefits fund.
Colton Joint Unified’s deal, Flores said, laps that reached in neighboring Fontana and is the result of extensive negotiations in lieu of litigation.
“It was not easy coming to this conclusion,” Tao said, “but everyone agrees this is a much better outcome than litigating over it and that has made all the difference. I salute the board and the consultants who set the stage for this by doing the legwork, the analysis, and not just yelling and screaming that this will be bad, but presenting analysis showing the impacts, the increased pollution, noise and traffic.
“Everyone worked in good faith and came out with this agreement at the end.”