At $130 million dollars and climbing, San Juan Hills High School, now being built in the Whispering Hills section of San Juan Capistrano, will be the second most expensive high school in California, according to figures from the Office of Public School Construction. The soaring costs of the high school are a central issue in a recall initiated against all seven members of the Capistrano Unified School District Board of Trustees “This school is being built on 85 to 130 feet of fill on the site of an ancient landslide, next to the dump, virtually under high-voltage transmission lines, on a road not meant for public use that has 600 daily trips from trash trucks on a steep grade, and across the street from a green waste facility. For this we paid nearly $1 million dollars per acre,” said Kevin Murphy, leader of Capo for Better Representation, a grass-roots group formed to recall the CUSD trustees.

According to Murphy, “Since the school is being built on the site of an ancient landslide, and at least two of the school buildings are built on more than 130 feet of filled-in canyons, the geological instability has caused the district to pay over $1 million in additional costs for special building foundations that were not factored into the original estimates.”

“The school also had to get special waivers to allow for a greater slope than is normally allowed on a hillside,” Murphy added. “The massive landform alteration this site required compared to similar sites is also contributing to the enormous costs of this land and school. The average cost of a high school in California is $40 million. We are now up to $130 million and climbing. We want to know why CUSD is spending three times the state average for such an undesirable parcel of land, especially when we are being told by the trustees that education dollars are so scarce they can’t afford to fund basic programs and services in the district.”

In calling into question the reasons for the increasing costs, Murphy stated, “This site could have been acquired by CUSD for under $3 million less than 7 years ago, but CUSD declined to acquire that site when notified of its availability by the University Regents. Just a few years later, CUSD entered into an agreement to buy less than 15 percent of that same land for over $50 million from the private developer who had purchased it from the public for just $2.9 million. CUSD then took action to require the city of San Juan Capistrano to allow massive grading of the site that somehow matched the developer’s original grading plan for residential units. CUSD claimed that they needed to grade over 100 acres, as far as a half-mile away from the school site, in order to get adequate fill dirt for the school site. We are questioning whether taxpayers have paid for the massive grading needed by the developer for his private housing project.”

The near tripling of construction costs have generated no response from the Measure Bond Oversight Committee, said the recall group. The committee was established to monitor the spending of a $65-million school construction bond that taxpayers approved in 1999, which was matched by the state at 60 percent. Part of the amount is being used to build the new high school.

“The costs have increased from original estimate of $60 million to the $80 million estimate that was given to the Measure oversight committee in 2002. This has ballooned to the current $130-million cost -- an amount that will likely increase before the school is completed,” said Murphy. “With the exception of us parents, no one, particularly the Measure A Oversight Committee, has raised any question about this enormous increase in costs, and we would like to know why,” he added.

Mike , a recall leader and CUSD parent said, “The only explanation CUSD offered to taxpayers and parents for the rise in the original construction cost is an increase in the cost of concrete and steel. I find it hard to believe that the materials increased in cost by $60 million; that’s a staggering amount of money. Common sense tells me it’s related more to the site issues, especially the massive grading, the reinforcement of unstable ground and the fill.”

Of additional concern is the fact that the road next to the school, La , is a county road that was intended only for trash trucks and is not up to code for use by the general public. “The grade of the road is steep, and the district and the developer had to enter into a use agreement with the county to indemnify and hold harmless the county, as well as make some improvements to the road, in return for obtaining the right to use the road for access to the school and the housing development. High school kids negotiating around trash trucks on a steep grade are not a good combination, in my opinion.” said Murphy. “CUSD claims that the high school site meets state standards, but at what cost? he added.

 agreed, saying, “This is yet another reason to recall this board and replace the superintendent. They are wasting precious resources on this location when they could have selected a safer site and spent far less money on construction. A better location would have saved our kids from exposure to the risks inherent to this site, and it would have freed up money to fix up some of our older schools and remove old portables.”

For additional information, visit the recall group’s website.