Members of the Steering Committee for the Redwood Valley Recreation Center attended the September 12 Ukiah Unified School District Board meeting to publicly request that the group be allowed to rehab the lower playing field of the former site of the Redwood Valley School.
This was not an agenda item, and members of the RVRC group spoke during the public comment section of the meeting. The Trustees are not able to take action on non-agenda items brought up during public comment. Steering Committee member Marybeth Kelly, a retired Eagle Peak math and science teacher, made the request, knowing that chances were slim to none that the Trustees would approve it. This was a follow-up to a similar email request that had been denied. The group wanted to make the request publicly so it would be on the record.
At the meeting, Kelly spoke about how the Veterans Memorial Recreation Center in San Bruno had been an important part of her childhood, and that the children of Redwood Valley deserved a recreation center. “We would like to start the rehabilitation of the lower playing fields now. It is the perfect time to reseed the fields.” This would require that the UUSD turn the ag water back on, which had been shut off during the drought. She let the Trustees know that the RVRC group has enough funds and volunteers to reseed the playing field. Licensed contractors, who are fully insured, would perform the work, with the help of community volunteers. The playing field is choked with star thistle, and the group would like to reseed the field over the winter months.
Kelly stated again for the record that the UUSD had promised to maintain the school and grounds in “pristine condition,” at the time it was closed in 2008.
Kelly has been avidly promoting the RVRC for several years. She previously dug into the archives and researched old UUSD Board Minutes, where she found confirmation of that statement.
From UUSD Board minutes Feb 9, 2010: “Trustees asked to confirm use of the schools for the community. Tom Birse, Director of Maintenance/Operations, reported that our most important resources besides students are our schools. We can maintain the campus in a park like setting if the Board chooses by using staff we have. To secure the facilities immediately the plan would be to board the windows but paint them until we lease out the facility. Twice a month maintenance will go though each room to ensure the facility remains in a pristine level, heating will be maintained at 55 degrees. We have a plan that is workable and doable to keep the schools in park like setting.”
For the first few years after the closure of the school, the playing fields were maintained by the UUSD and were used regularly by soccer teams. The ag water was shut off during the drought and was never turned back on.
Steering Committee member Sonya Pio commented that local children need access to a recreation center, saying, “As a community, we’re not offering them enough.”
The property for the Redwood Valley School was originally donated by Florence and J.M. Wooley. Descendants Jerry Wooley and his sister Karen (Wooley) Goodman-Stratman were at the meeting to support the request to renovate the playing fields.
At the August 8 UUSD Board meeting, the Trustees informed the group that any decision would have to wait until after the State Board of Education holds its meeting on November 13-14. Kelly informed us that the UUSD Trustees have applied for a waiver under Education Code Section 33050. A waiver will allow the UUSD to either sell the property outright without going through the open bidding process, which they have tried unsuccessfully twice. Alternatively, the District can lease the property, which is what the RVRC group is aiming for. The application for waiver will be addressed at the November SBOE meeting.
Echoing what the UUSD Board told the group at the August 8 meeting, where the Trustees urged the RVRC group to wait until after the November meeting, Trustee Zoey Fernandez said, “There will be an RFP [Request for Proposal] process that will need to be unbiased. We can’t work directly with any group.”
After the meeting, Kelly told us, “The RFP process won’t start for months. Allowing a citizen group to clean up a public property isn’t showing favoritism.”
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I think as a welcoming democratic community we should build a refugee shelter to help all of he immigrants. We need a lot more housing and resources for these struggling populations. We have the space and should increase our rates to help the county afford it.
Wasn’t the school district supposed to maintain this school despite being closed? Wouldn’t reseeding the grass and maintaining the grounds be a part of that? Am I misremembering things?
That is the Flats not the field. This is where if you had a problem with someone at school that is where it got settled. There is NO way that school is going to become some sort of a unicorn farm. Where is the Money? Mendocino is broke, I mean broke.