There is a mysterious item on tonight’s agenda for the board of trustees of Eureka City Schools. 

That item — numbered M.33 — carries a long title. It is called:

“Adoption of Resolution 23-24-023 Approving Property Exchange Pursuant to Education Code Section 17536 and Directing District Superintendent, or Designee, to Finalize and Execute the Agreement for Exchange of Real Property”

The staff report for that item — read it here — contains a little bit more information. It is a memo from staff to the school board, asking the board to approve a property swap. The board is asked to trade 674 Allard Avenue — the long-disused Jacobs Campus — for another piece of property.

Which piece of property would the district be trading for? Who would they be trading with? For what purpose?

The district is not saying. The details of the proposed land-swap staff is proposing are contained in a draft contract attached to the staff report — they call it “Exhibit A” — which school district staff say will not be made public until the time of the meeting. 

This morning, the Outpost spoke with Micalyn Harris, the executive assistant to Superintendent Fred Van Vleck, who is scheduled to leave the job at the end of the month. Harris declined to provide the Outpost a copy of “Exhibit A,” on the grounds that the board was also dealing with the question of the Jacobs Campus earlier in the evening, during a closed session item.

Whether or not the board takes action on the staff’s proposed land swap will depend on what happens during that closed session discussion, Harris said.

“Depending on the board’s determination out of those confidential discussions, they may or may not decide to take action,” Harris said. “And if they do decide to have a conversation outside of closed session and take action on that item, those documents will be available for the public.”

One trustee on the Eureka City Schools board told the Outpost that they had received documentation about the proposed land swap, but that they could not discuss it with us, for similar reasons — that it would be discussed earlier, in closed session, and that fact precluded release of information about the deal scheduled to be heard later, in open session.

So the public goes into tonight’s meeting blind about the details. Despite that, the staff report asks the board to approve the property swap at tonight’s meeting. This, at the very least, is an unusual state of affairs in California, which has laws to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in public.

The Jacobs Campus has been much in the news of late, and not only for its squalor. Last year the City of Eureka attempted to purchase the property from the school district in order to build housing, but its bid was rejected. The California Highway Patrol has been in negotiations to buy the site for a new headquarters for well over a year. Most recently, proponents of the pro-parking “Housing for All Initiative” have touted it as an alternate site for housing development, which might theoretically allow for the preservation of downtown parking lots.

The staff report estimates the value of the proposed land swap at $6 million.

The Eureka City Schools Board of Trustees meets at at 5:30 p.m. at district headquarters — 2100 J Street, Eureka.