Many years ago the Fallbrook Union High School district had a school site on Gird Road. On one occasion while working at Fallbrook High, I overheard the district's construction and facilities manager tell someone that the district would likely never need that site. (I assume that it owned the property as far back as the 80's, maybe even earlier.) But he added that at some future time, when the Bonsall District unified (meaning it would take on the role of providing its own high school), it would get and use the Gird Road property. Apparently it was within the boundaries of the Bonsall district. So, I'm assuming that this site is the same one he was discussing about 1995.

If this site is that piece of property, it represents some foresight on the part of the Fallbrook high school district at a time when major growth had not occurred in the area. To assemble an accessible fifty-acre sight there now would be challenging, and likely costly.

So, now it is up to the Bonsall board of trustees and its administration to get the high school built right, on budget, and overcome the NIMBY objections of nearly property owners. If they can do that, great. If they cannot, it will be typical of what happens so often in building needed new schools.

Thanks to The Reader for covering this issue! More light needs to be shed on this apparent lack of transparency in school districts, particularly Bonsall. This District, after its voters rejected the proposed high school, immediately began looking for a new way to foist the proposed school on its taxpayers. The current vehicle is the controversial Lease Leaseback Agreement. The District apparently tried to circumvent the proposed changes in the LLB which took affect Jan 1 2017, by having its Board of Trustees approve the Agreement at its Dec Board Meeting, then waiting to sign the agreement in case the expected Complaint was filed. This begs the question: why not wait until Jan 1 and comply with the new law? Or, If the District was confidant of its position, why not sign the Agreement in December when the aboard approved it? the answer lies in the advantages of each law, the 2016 and 2017 versions which the District hoped to take advantage of. In particular the 2016 law allowed the District to avoid a competitive bid process, allowing it to select the aforementioned Erickson Hall. One inaccuracy on the part of Superintendent Cunningham is his assertion that the 2015 lawsuit was dismissed because the allegations were false. The record of that Complaint is available and it shows that the Complaint was dropped because the Complaint was not filed within the 60 day window. A complainant has 60 days after a LLB construction contract is entered into to file a complaint, after which the Contract can "self-validate". Dr Cunningham: "We prevailed in that case, but it cost over $35,000 to help the judge see that the list of allegations were all false."

The Gird Road site lost 3 out of 3 times at the ballot box for school bond funding, twice under ownership of Fallbrook School District and once under Bonsall School District's (Measure DD, 2016). At the same time, the school’s size has grown from a few hundred students to a monstrous 100,000 sq. ft. building for 1500+ students plus staff, admin, faculty, making the site very unpopular. Native oaks dot the hilly Gird Road site; 16 acres are federally designated arroyo toad critical habitat. Only 25 acres out of 50 are useable, far too small for a 1500-student school per CA Dept of Ed: www.cde.ca.gov/ls/fa/sf/guideschoolsite.asp#Table1. None of these facts slowed down the contractor (who also heavily funded DD). Only a legal challenge led by CALTAN did. And now we read that the contractor who keeps winning jobs at the Bonsall School District (via extremely expensive and controversial lease-leaseback funding arrangements where contractors both build AND fund projects) has embedded one of their own long-time employees, David Metcalf, as a $90,000/year Bonsall School District employee! (transparentcalifornia dot com)! Gird Road runs through one of FALLBROOK’s (not Bonsall's) most picturesque valleys where residents succeeded in protecting 116 acres from residential development. A vineyard with olive trees and an Old World Italian-style winery are build created on land protected forever by conservation easements (see SaveFallbrookGolfCourse dot com). Gird Valley residents reject a huge school on the Gird Road site at the southern end of the valley, would prefer a staging area for walking/riding/running trails from the San Luis Rey River Park all the way to Live Oak Park to the North. That, not a huge school, would really give value to Gird Valley and to the Fallbrook community. Gird Valley in Fallbrook does not want traffic, noise or light pollution which is why bond measures to fund a bigger and bigger BONSALL school keep failing at the ballot box. Fallbrook already supports a large high school on the west side of town and passed a $45-million bond (Measure AA) last fall. With this lousy LLB contract off its back, the Bonsall School Board is now free to finish the environmental assessment at the Gird Road site (which has value for other uses) and seriously consider other sites, recognizing that the Gird Road site has never succeeded, and never will, at securing the voter's commitment to fund it. Never mind the damage to Gird Valley, attempting to build on the Gird Road site without a strong financial commitment from the community will surely bankrupt the Bonsall School District. Anyone out there with at least 35 to 45 primarily flat acres near a four-lane road and/or major interchange? This is your chance to contribute to the future of education in North San Diego County! The residents of Fallbrook and its lovely Gird Valley thank you!