The Jacobs Campus earlier this year. File photo: Andrew Goff.

PREVIOUSLY:

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The board of directors of Eureka City Schools unanimously — even rapturously — voted to trade the long-blighted Jacobs Campus to a private developer for another piece of land at its meeting Thursday night.

What land will the district get in return for those eight acres, where the California Highway Patrol had hoped to build a new headquarters?

The district will get 3553 I Street, a tiny home on an 1/8 of an acre lot south of Harris.

3553 I Street, via Google Street View.

That, plus $5.35 million.

Why does the school district want a tiny house way out on I Street? Well, if you believe the resolution approved unanimously by the board tonight, it needs the property for “housing district employees in the future.”

But the $5.35 million was far more to the point at the board of trustees meeting. Trustees and Superintendent Fred Van Vleck — attending his last board meeting — repeatedly referred to how welcome the money would be. Van Vleck in particular referred to the refurbishment of Eureka High’s Albee Stadium, which he said would cost in the neighborhood of $45 million total. He said he expected the district still needed to scrape together around $15 million for the project.

Even leaving aside the I Street house, the private developers who ended up with Jacobs — “AMG Communities-Jacobs,” an LLC registered with the Secretary of State just a few days ago — offered $1.35 million more than the California Highway Patrol’s last bid, Van Vleck said.

But throwing the I Street property into the mix seems to mean that the school board was able to avoid the standard procedure for a government entity wishing to dispose of surplus land. By engaging in a “land exchange,” the board was able to short-circuit the regular surplus land laws, and instead to claim an exemption under California Education Code Section 17536, which allows a school board to “exchange property” with a private party.

The exchange agreement approved by the school board tonight puts the overall value of the Jacobs Campus at $6 million. It values the I Street property at a patently absurd $650,000 — Zillow has it at $372,000 — which, perhaps not coincidentally, is just over 10 percent of the total value of Jacobs. The balance will be paid to the district in cash.

Were it not for the “land swap,” the district would have to continue to follow the onerous “surplus lands” process, which is well outlined in this pamphlet from the law firm of Lozano Smith. Districts have to offer surplus land to other governmental entities first, and follow an involved process of bidding and regulatory notifications and etc. But it can “exchange land” with basically anyone, at any time, with a 2/3 vote of the board.

That vote seemed never in doubt, with one board trustee member calling the deal a “no-brainer.”

“I’m here for the kids,” said board president Mike Duncan. “I’m here to make sure that these kids have a future, so to me — whether it’s $1.7 million with a property, $1.5 [million] or $1.3, it’s still one million-plus or two million more towards everything that we need to get done for these kids.”

Toward the end of the meeting and immediately before the vote, resident Thomas Stewart bemoaned the lack of transparency around the issue. Only today did anyone in the public have any idea that the school district was swerving away from the CHP deal — only at the meeting, really — and he expressed disappointment at the loss of what he believed to be an opportunity to make his neighborhood safer, with the addition of an on-the-ground law enforcement presence.

Duncan advised Stewart to take the issue up with the City of Eureka, which is in charge of policing the town.

The Outpost will have more on this deal — which, in addition to being extraordinary in itself, reshapes the political fight over affordable housing in the downtown area — in the coming days.

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Outpost reporter Stephanie McGeary contributed to this report.