The long-vacant Jacobs Middle School campus at 674 Allard Avenue. | File photo.

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After more than six years of public pressure, political scandals and backroom negotiations over a convoluted land swap deal that went up in flames, the fate of Eureka City Schools’s vacant Jacobs Middle School campus finally appears clear — though, as this saga has shown, appearances can prove deceptive.

Last night, the district’s Board of Trustees approved a two-year irrevocable option agreement giving the State of California the exclusive right to purchase the property for $4 million. The sale, if consummated, would allow the California Highway Patrol to build a new area headquarters on the property, located at 674 Allard Avenue.

Per the terms of the deal, the state will make up to two annual, nonrefundable payments to Eureka City Schools of $253,100 (for a total of $506,200) while conducting the environmental and feasibility studies necessary for the CHP project.

Eureka City Schools Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Paul Ziegler said the state’s willingness to make those cash payments suggests that the CHP is serious about the deal, which could take 18 to 24 months to finalize, according to a story by Times-Standard reporter Sage Alexander.

The vacant school site has alternately been proposed as good spot for affordable housing development, and Alexander reports that some public speakers, including members of a local tenants union, spoke at last night’s meeting, urging the board to reject the state’s offer in favor of using low-income housing tax credits to build rentals for district employees.

But a shorthanded board — with trustees Lisa Ollivier and Rebecca Pardoe absent — voted 3-0 to approve the agreement with the State of California. 

The CHP’s current patrol area office, at 255 East Samoa Boulevard in Arcata, sits in a tsunami hazard zone, hence the desire to relocate.

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DOCUMENT: CHP Humboldt Jacobs Site Option Agreement

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