Land issues hindering plans for school

Somerton will consider condemning nearby property

The Somerton City Council agreed Wednesday with Yuma Union High School District leaders to begin considering the possibility of condemning a property so construction of a high school can proceed.

The council held a work session with board members and administrative leaders from the district to consider the options left after an adjacent landowner’s refusal to sign a covenant pledging not to spray pesticides during school hours.

The school district is required to get pesticide covenants from all landowners within a quarter-mile of the campus before construction can begin.

“The pesticide covenant is necessary for us,” Superintendent Gina Thompson said, adding, “The Yuma Union High School District is not going to enter into any kind of condemnation process or anything that would involve any kind of legal process, from our district.

“But at this time we would be working together with Somerton to look at some of the other options,” she said.

The district’s ideas were either building a more compact school that would sit a quarter-mile away from the property owner on the south who was not signing the covenant, which would probably mean a threestory campus and smaller playing fields for students.

“We all know in a rural area, the concern for us is any time an elevator goes down in a building, what you would do and whether you would be able to have anyone in town come and take care of it. Those are the practical things you have to think about,” Thompson said.

Moving the campus further north on the districtowned land is not an option because property owners on that end have also refused to sign a covenant, she said. Current plans call for a bus barn to be built on the northern end.

The other plan B would

be building the school somewhere else through a land swap, but other available properties would be farther out from the city center than the current site at Cesar Chavez Avenue and Highway 95.

Roads, plumbing or other infrastructure would have to be extended out to the other sites, adding significantly to the cost when neither the district nor city has the money.

Bill Sims, a Phoenixbased attorney who grew up in Yuma and has represented the City of Somerton, said via speakerphone that it sounded as if the city and school district had exhausted all of the alternatives to starting a condemnation action.

“Bluntly, what I think you’re going to have to do, if we have one landowner, standing in the way of the will of the voters, to prevent construction of a high school the voters have authorized, that does suggest condemnation,” he said.

This would require filing a court action and seeking a judge’s order to authorize the city or some other entity to take control of the land.

The judge would consider appraisals submitted by both sides of the case, and decide which of the two would be the purchase price.

A plan by the city to build a joint-use recreational facility or some other project which would benefit the general public, as well as the high school students, would strengthen the case for condemnation, Sims said. “We’ve done that a lot in Chandler” in similar situations,” he said.

Vice Mayor Gerardo Anaya said there had been discussions about that in the past.

Martin Porchas, a Yuma County supervisor and former mayor of Somerton, attended the meeting as a citizen and strongly backed the condemnation idea.

“But if they’re not even willing to talk, to the council or the school board, our only option, my recommendation would be to do condemnation,” he said.

Porchas added that the Somerton Elementary School District owns land on the other side of the property owner that won’t sign the covenant.

The city council agreed to discuss a potential condemnation during a closed executive session for legal advice at next week’s meeting.

However, the meeting ended with residents questioning the high school district’s commitment to building the school, after hearing the funding for school staffing is not already in place.

YUHSD Chief Financial Officer Dianne Cordery told Sims the district is not ready to start construction immediately.

“We’re not going to start selling bonds for this until 2020. So we’re not ready to build by any means, we still have to figure out the staffing, how to come up with funding for staffing this school.”

Somerton Elementary District Governing Board member Lorena Zendejas said this worried her, as an indication the high school board isn’t truly committed to completing the campus.

“To me, as I’m hearing, that is a red flag to me,” she said.

Thompson responded that Somerton and its need for a school is always prioritized at the district office, which is working toward attracting enough quality teachers and employees to staff the school.

Voters in 2015 approved the bond package that included funding for the future Somerton High School. Currently, more than 70 percent of students at Kofa High School in Yuma are bused in from Somerton.

When bonds are issued in 2020, construction could be completed as early as 2021.