Suit seeks to block VUSD magnet campus

By: STACY BRANDT - Staff Writer

VISTA ---- An education reform group and an Oceanside resident filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Vista Unified School District, accusing the district of misusing bond money and asking the court to block the construction of a magnet high school planned for 66 acres in eastern Oceanside.

The lawsuit ---- filed by Jerry McLeod and an organization called the Council Urging Reform of Education ---- alleges that the district hasn't built the projects it originally promised under Proposition O, a $140 million bond measure passed by voters in 2002.

"If you think of Prop. O as a contract with the voters ... the district has broken its contract," said Everett DeLano, the lawyer representing McLeod and the education group. "That's the problem."

Interim Superintendent Darrel Taylor said Tuesday that the allegations in the lawsuit are untrue.

"We're doing nothing illegal with Prop. O funds, and allegations of that nature are not based on fact," he said.

McLeod owns a home near Highway 76 and Melrose Drive and has vehemently opposed the district's plan for a magnet high school there. He said Tuesday that he has been working on the lawsuit for about two years.

The lawsuit demands that the district sell the property it purchased last year for $18 million and return that money to taxpayers.

McLeod said he is concerned about students' safety at the site and thinks the district is planning to use the campus as a comprehensive high school instead of the two magnet schools called for in the proposition.

"This is a backdoor way of them getting the comprehensive high school that they want," he said. "And I don't think it's right."

The lawsuit also seeks to halt all construction of new modular classrooms in the district, saying the language in Prop. O implied that the district would replace portable buildings with permanent construction.

District officials have said that modular classrooms are widely used by schools throughout the state and are the most cost-effective ways to build the classrooms the district needs.

The third allegation in the suit accuses the district of reneging on its original plan to build two kindergarten through eighth-grade schools, and says that the money for those projects should also be returned to taxpayers.

"In the big picture, they're all different versions of misusing public funds," DeLano said.

Taylor said Vista Unified clearly plans to follow bond language and open the Melrose campus as a dual magnet campus.

He also said that it is perfectly legal for the district to modify some of the plans that were set forth in Prop. O, as long as it follows the underlying concept of providing needed classrooms for students, he said.

"Times change as you do construction, so the language doesn't hold you to something specific," Taylor said. "If we did everything as it was written on that bond statement, we might be spending money foolishly."

He said the district has been faithful to voters in building badly needed schools.

"That's what the district has done ---- provide housing for unhoused students," he said. "And that's what the public wanted."

John Lemmo, a lawyer representing the district, said Tuesday that he had not yet received the lawsuit and wouldn't comment until he had.

The Council Urging Reform of Education was started more than 20 years ago by people living in the Vista Unified School District boundaries who were concerned with policy issues, said Chris Marsolais, the group's executive director. The group is currently focused on the controversial magnet high school project.

"The bottom line is to kill the Melrose (Drive) site, so we can return the money to the taxpayers," he said.

Contact staff writer Stacy Brandt at (760) 631-6622 or sbrandt@nctimes.com.

© 2006. Paid for and authorized by Cody Campbell for School Board 2006, FPPC ID# 1290192.