Wood Ranch School Finance Options Studied

SIMI VALLEY — With $3.1 million already in hand for the construction of a Wood Ranch elementary school, trustees here are considering taking out a loan or requesting an advance in developers’ fees to open the long-awaited campus on time.

“We have half of what we need right now,” school board President Norm Walker said this week. “And there’s no reason to believe we won’t get the rest in time, but we need a contingency plan.”

That contingency plan would ensure that the Simi Valley Unified School District can open the $6.1-million school in the fall of 1998, even if developer New Urban West does not pay the remaining $3 million by a February 1998 due date.

The money is New Urban West’s payment for the purchase of a 1,850-acre piece of land--called the Long Canyon parcel--owned by the school district.

As new residents purchase the more than 600 homes planned for Long Canyon, the Santa Monica-based developer will pay the district the remaining money. The houses are slated for construction late this year or early next year.

If the second New Urban West payment does not arrive in time, trustees must find a way to bridge the funding gap until the money comes, according to a memo prepared by Supt. Tate Parker.

Among the options trustees will discuss at their Tuesday meeting are:

* Shifting funds from the district’s adult education building fund, a transfer allowed as long as the money is returned by June 30, 1998;

* Requesting an advance payment from New Urban West if Long Canyon construction is nearly complete;

* Dipping into the district’s contingency reserve; or

* Borrowing short-term from private lenders, which would be the most expensive option.

Trustees could also mix and match those options, according to Parker’s memo.

“This is pretty routine,” Walker said. “In any operation, you need to look at the what-ifs: What if we don’t get all the money we anticipate when we expect it. The other alternative would be not finishing the school, which is not an acceptable option.”

Parents and children who live in the sprawling Wood Ranch subdivision have long awaited the opening of a Wood Ranch school, needed to ease overcrowding at the Madera Elementary campus.

Plans for a Wood Ranch school were initiated in 1982 as part of a proposed 4,000-home development project in southwestern Simi Valley. But when the parent company of the original Wood Ranch developer, Olympia/Roberts, filed for bankruptcy 11 years later, 2,400 homes had sprung up but no school had been built.

Instead of the promised school, Olympia/Roberts handed over an undeveloped parcel of land to the school district, which the district then sold to New Urban West. That land deal will pay for construction of the school.

In recent months, the school district has been steadily working toward opening the school: making a public promise to build the school, picking an elegant Spanish-style design for the building; and hiring Pasadena architects Neptune, Thomas Davis for the project.

Groundbreaking is slated for April, Parker said. Construction of the campus on Circle Knoll Drive off the Wood Ranch Parkway will take about 12 months.

Discussing the contingency plan is “just one more in a long line of issues we deal with to make sure this project goes forward,” Walker said. “It may not be flashy, but it’s progress.”