By Bruce Lieberman
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER October 4, 2008
NORTH COUNTY – San Dieguito Union High School District trustees have gotten their first look at a proposal from La Costa Valley residents to restrict how the district uses vacant land off Calle Barcelona.
Trustees responsed mostly with legal questions.
Later this month, the board is expected to revisit the residents’ proposal, which calls for a deed restriction on 22 acres south of Calle Barcelona between Rancho Santa Fe Road and El Camino Real.
La Costa Valley residents have said the district reneged on plans to build a middle school on the property, while the district has said flattening enrollment since 2000 forced a change of plans.
Directors of the La Costa Valley homeowners association say they want legally binding guarantees that the district will build a school there eventually or make sure the land is used for a community park.
The association’s directors have said that 2,750 homeowners have paid a Mello-Roos tax amounting to about $800 annually and that they should benefit directly from their property taxes.
San Dieguito administrators have said that more than $23 million of the tax dollars collected within the tax district have been put to good use, as allowed under the law. Campuses in the district that La Costa Valley children are or will be attending have been renovated and modernized.
Some La Costa Valley residents remain unsatisfied.
“We cannot understand why … the district wouldn’t support a limitation” on the district’s title to the property, resident Leonard Steinberg said at a school board meeting Thursday night.
“It seems to us and the homeowners that we represent that clearly this is something that would benefit this community since, after all, it is our money that paid for that school site.”
Andrew Weis, a homeowners association director, told the school board that his association wants the district to act soon.
“If this deed restriction is not finalized by Oct. 31 … we’re going to do what we need to do to ensure success,” Weis said. “We’re not sure what that is. We’re hoping that this will be resolved.”
School trustees said a long list of questions need to be addressed before they can consider any proposal to place restrictions on the deed. Among them:
What percentage of the homeowners who live within the tax district (known as Community Facilities District 94-2) are members of the La Costa Valley homeowners association?
Can the school board enter into an agreement with the La Costa Valley homeowners association if the tax district includes homeowners who are not members of that association?
How do other homeowners associations within the tax district feel about the La Costa Valley proposal?
Can the current school board legally encumber future school boards with such a deed restriction?
Would a deed restriction violate provisions of the original Mello-Roos tax district?
San Dieguito administrators and attorneys are expected to address the issues in coming weeks, before the school board casts a final vote on the proposal.
Trustee Dee Rich suggested that the school district and La Costa Valley residents are more in line with their goals for the property than some people might realize.
“Obviously, we want a school built there,” she said.
“Demographics change. Why do we have to put anything on the property if we want to put a school there? What is the problem with simply holding on to the property?”
The August 23rd issue of the San Diego Union-Tribune has an article by Bruce Lieberman, U-T staff writer entitled: “Restrictions asked on use of district’s idle site”
A few highlights:
San Diego Union High School District (SDUHSD) Superintendent Ken Noah made it clear that ultimatums and scare tactics will make it more difficult to negotiate.
The Friends of North County (FONC) group had sent out scare-tactic letters, fabricated photographs, and mis-statements that have concerned many La Costa Valley residents. Other residents have supported these methods.
Some FONC members are now on the board of La Costa Valley and on a steering committee, and are issuing demands to the school district in advance of a vote by La Costa Valley Homeowners.
“If this is a set of demands that are not acceptable to the district and there’s no room to negotiate, it’s going to be very hard to forge a solution here,” Noah said yesterday.
The article also raises the matter that the Mello-Roos taxes paid for the middle school were collected in other areas besides La Costa Valley, and also that those taxes were not designated only for a middle school.
Concerned La Costa Valley homeowners should get involved now:
Attend the School District and City Planning Department meetings to listen to the issues and let your voices be heard
Let the La Costa Valley Homeowner’s Association know your concerns:
Encourage them to use effective negotiating techniques and not resort to the scare and mis-information tactics of the FONC group
Remind the board not to take action on this matter before it has been authorized to do so by a 2/3 vote of the La Costa Valley Homeowners. Otherwise, the time and money spent on such efforts won’t be legally binding so will be wasted.
Let the board know how you feel about the various proposals that have been raised, such as an assessment on all homeowners to buy or develop the property, an assessment on homeowners that live adjacent to the undeveloped property, or an assessment to pay for legal fees.
The La Costa Valley HOA has formed a committee to look at options for the vacant land. They will need to set a budget, so it can help if you a take a moment and tell them how much extra you, as a homeowner, are willing to pay in the coming year.
This would be their budget for consulting fees, research, legal fees, meetings, and possibly to buy the vacant land. This would be a one-time assessment that each homeowner would need to pay within the next 12 months.
How much can we put you down for?
Immediately after you take this poll, you will be able to see the results. Visit this site again, and you’ll be able to see the latest results as your neighbors give their votes. This is only a straw poll, so it not legally binding! It’s simply a way for us all to know where our neighbors stand.
There is no current lawsuit about the vacant land owned by the school district.
On some questions, there may be as many opinions as neighbors. Some neighbors may believe it’s worth risking legal action to prevail over the school district, developers, or whoever is at fault for not building a middle school as advertised. Others may be concerned that any legal action will have a negative effect on property values.
What is your opinion?
Check back for the sentiments of other La Costa Valley homeowners.
There have been a lot of questions raised about the group calling themselves Friends of North County. (FONC)
Here are some ways to learn a little more yourself.
Non-profit status
You can check to see when Friends of North County (FONC) is granted non-profit or 501(c)3 status, so are eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions.
Go to the IRS website and check if have been granted that status yet. Just enter “Friends of North County” in the name.
You can also check on Charity Navigator, which shows how well foundations and non-profits spend their money.
You can search on the California Secretary of State website and see that FONC is registered as a Corporation, but it is not a complete record. It does not show non-profit status, nor that any funds you donate will be going to a tax-deductible organization. In fact, you’ll find a possible conflict of interest in that the FONC address and name given is also a member of the La Costa Valley HOA.
Website
You can learn more about FONC directly from their website. If you type “friendsofnorthcounty.org” you get one of those blank, coming-soon, type of pages. But, there actually is more information deeper on the site, including their stated mission.
The La Costa Valley HOA is having a special HOA meeting on Tuesday May 6th at 7pm, at the Coastline Community Church on Calle Barcelona.
The topic of the meeting is the vacant property next to the church, and how much we will be involved in its future. Specifically, the meeting is regarding La Costa Valley Master Assoc.’s authority-limitations and capabilities regarding School District property.
Can La Costa Valley Homeowners have a say in the use of the property?
Will this be as citizens of the City of Carlsbad?
Will this be through the LCV Homeowner’s Association?
Will our voices be heard as parents of middle-age school children?
It’s very important that homeowners get involved now however they feel about the school district’s property.
Please tell your La Costa Valley friends and neighbors about the meeting, because we did not get much advance notice.
There’s the possibility that this special HOA Board meeting may not be valid for any voting purposes.
According to the HOA by-laws, we need to be told about upcoming meetings well in advance. Notice for HOA special meetings must be within 20 days after a board president calls a special a meeting or after the board receives a petition asking for one, and must be no sooner than 35 days and no later than 90 days after that decision or petition. See section 4.6 in the by-laws on the official La Costa Valley HOA website (you will need Adobe PDF).
The notice will be in the paper newsletter, but at best that will only arrive one or two days before the meeting, certainly not enough time for busy La Costa Valley HOA homeowners to change their schedules.
This is the latest email from the Friends of North County.
They’ve admitted they don’t have non-profit status. That’s curious because they said before they formed in 2006 and it doesn’t take so many years to attain that status. In any case, it’s unclear what would happen with whatever contributions they get.
Friends
While we are responding as quickly as we can to your emails and questions, we wanted to take this opportunity to share a few points with you and to ask for your help.
Many of you have asked for details about where you can send your donation. Please make your checks payable to Friends of North County. They can be sent to 1042 North El Camino Real P.O. Box 237, Encinitas, CA 92024. Friends of North County is a non-profit organization. We have applied for tax deductible status but we are still awaiting that designation. It may take many months for that to occur (and there are no guarantees that it will). We will let you know if we are granted that designation but urge you NOT to wait for that to occur before you send in your donation.
Several of you have forwarded your thoughts to us since our presentation earlier this week. Your input and comments help us to better understand the community’s perspective and the level of support we can count on as we continue this process. We also request that you share your thoughts with your friends and neighbors as well. For those of you who have not sent us your comments, we ask that you take a few minutes and send us an email with the information noted below. Please send your comments to mail@friendsofnorthcounty.org. To help inform the community, we may post excerpts of your emails on our website (no names, email address, or contact information will be displayed). Please provide us with your thoughts in general about the issues but also include the following:
What you have learned from our recent presentation;
Your thoughts about how the school district has dealt with us;
Why you believe the school district has responded the way they have;
Whether or not you believe the school district (their employees and their elected officials) should be held accountable for their actions; and
Do you believe you were misled by the school district’s seven year promotion and signage campaign advertising the “future middle school.”
We are looking to expand our media relationships. If any of you have strong ties to the media, we would appreciate a referral. We are looking for local media contacts, but also for national media contacts focused on investigative reporting (20/20, 60 Minutes, Primetime, etc.). While we have limited our focus to this particular school district, this particular property, and the specific use of taxpayer funds for which we are all paying $800 per year for thirty-five years, known as CFD 94-2 (Mello Roos), we also are aware of similar issues throughout California (and we believe the nation) where school districts are taking advantage of taxpayers. We believe our story has national significance and that promoting what we have learned (and will be learning) will benefit our community, as well as taxpayers and government officials across the country.
Again we restate what we have posted in the past. The school district has all of our contact information. We continue to hope that they will decide to work with us in this matter to reach a solution. Until that happens (or in case it does not) we will not be deterred by the school district’s campaign of misinformation, propaganda, and scare tactics. The history of the district’s actions can’t be changed. They can’t erase it, get rid of it, or avoid it. We have taken the time to learn those facts and are determined to learn more.Thank you again for your input, support and comments.
The following email was sent out to many La Costa Valley residents. There was no attached presentation.
The Friends of North County bring up some interesting questions
Just how many people attended this meeting?
Why can’t they share the documents they mention? If they can send emails, they can certainly attach scanned documents
What will happen to property values if LCV gets mired in a legal dispute?
How is this letter different from what FoNC says the school district has done: “misinformation, propaganda and scare tactics”?
What will happen with any money donated to FoNC? Is it a legally registered foundation?
To all that were able to attend the Community Meeting last night at Coastline Community Church, thank you so much for your participation, interest, questions, and donations to Friends of North County. We were pleased that so many were motivated to attend the meeting despite the District’s scare tactics and warnings not to attend. Ironically, many of you mentioned that the District phone call and letter actually inspired you to attend. After the presentation, I’m sure you have a better understanding of why the District did not want you to hear what we had to say, to see the documents we shared with you, and what the likely uses for the property will be if we were to all stay silent and don’t get more involved.
Unfortunately, we recognize that many who would have liked to attend were unable to due to the myriad of conflicts that our busy lives present. Given the wonderful turnout at the meeting, we expect that you should be able to identify a friend or neighbor that was able to attend the 2+ hour presentation and can share a summary of our findings. We hope too that you will feel motivated, like so many of your friends and neighbors, to donate to Friends of North County as we will be continuing to pursue our efforts. Friends of North County, and many in attendance, believe that the Homeowners Association for La Costa Valley should get involved in this issue. While we are hopeful that they will do so, that will not happen without greater community involvement and letting your voices be heard that you want them involved. Regardless of their involvement, we also will continue the process we have pursued for the past 31 months. However, as we expand our investigation efforts we are requesting greater financial participation from the community. Again, please speak with your friends and neighbors and/or contact Friends of North County via e-mail (mail@friendsofnorthcounty.org) to inquire about donating.
We are currently developing a strategy of how best to communicate with our community on this issue. Regardless of the strategy please note that our correspondence via email will be very limited. We will not be sharing critical information, documents or findings electronically. In the meantime, we encourage you to forward this email to your friends and neighbors. If they would like to be in the Friends of North County database they can send an email to mail@friendsofnorthcounty.org.As we have said repeatedly to the school district in meetings, at public hearings and in our media interviews, our goal has always been, and continues to be, to seek open and honest dialogue with the school district about the ultimate use of the school property and the money associated with our Mello Roos taxes. The school district has all of our contact information. We continue to hope that they will decide to work with us in this manner to reach a solution. Until that happens (or in case it does not) we will not be deterred by the school district’s campaign of misinformation, propaganda and scare tactics. The history of the district’s actions can’t be changed. They can’t erase it, get rid of it or avoid it. We have taken the time to learn those facts and are determined to learn more.
Also, the following email was sent by the Friends of North County on March 15, 2008. It included a sensationalized artist’s rendering of high-density housing along Calle Barcelona.
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Could LOW INCOME HOUSING, COMMERCIAL CENTERS, APARTMENTS or INDUSTRIAL PARKS be coming to your La Costa Valley neighborhood?
Find out why the answer could be YES.
Become informed about the vacant property in the heart of La Costa Valley. Neighborhood meeting:Wednesday, March 26 at 7:00 pmCoastline Community Church2215 Calle Barcelona
