New faces join high school debate:
Don’t want homes displaced

By Lori Bledsoe
The Alpine Sun

     ALPINE — The Grossmont Union High School District Scoping meeting to discuss the community’s input for the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the 12th high school project, held Oct. 30 in Alpine, was enlightening to many local residents.
     Up until now, there has been no input from the neighbors who surround the Chocolate Summit site or the Lazy A site, but Tuesday night’s meeting brought their concerns to light for the first time. Displacement issues of residents are imbedded in both plans for these two sites, and many voiced their opinions.
     Bob Kiesling, GUHSD’s Executive Director of Facilities Management, directed this meeting; introducing Travis Stravasnik who is one of the scientists who will be working on the EIR. Stravasnik explained quickly the scope and scale of the project that is to be launched with the 12th high school plan, much of what everyone has been reading and hearing for the last year or so.
     The plan is to construct a comprehensive high school that will house 2,000 students, complete with physical education facilities, sports fields, aquatic center, up-to-date classroom facilities, as well as sufficient parking grounds. Stravasnik’s report was succinct and to the point, while he showed preliminary plans of what a high school could look like on any of the chosen study sites that are to be included in the EIR.
     Stravasnik said again, that the purpose of the EIR is to use special studies to identify possible effects on the environment, such as aesthetics and visual effects, agricultural and land effects, water effects (i.e. flooding, drainage etc) and several other issues that are scrutinized in any large scaled building project.
     The Draft EIR is scheduled to be published in the Fall of 2008. A community meeting will be held again at that time to discuss the outcome of the EIR, and then a final EIR will be published in the Winter of 2008. GUHSD will certify the Final EIR; will adopt the findings and mitigations, as well as the monitoring plan at this time. The FEIR will denote all public opinions and concerns.
     Once Stravasnik finished explaining the scope of the project and the process of the EIR, Kiesling opened the floor up to public comment. Out of the 50-plus people that attended this meeting, many were new faces to this saga, and six people filled out speaker cards.
     Evelyn Provoznik, a resident who would be impacted by the Chocolate Summit site being built upon brought to the floor her concerns about the existing traffic that is already out of hand on Dunbar Lane during the morning and afternoon hours.
     “The Grossmont Union High School District already looked at this area to build their school and dismissed this site because of traffic issues,” Provoznik said. She continued by saying that the impacted traffic would be greater now due to the new Los Coches Creek Middle School that was built there last year.
     Another resident, Celesta Rannisi-Owen said that the residents of Chocolate Summit were not notified of GUHSD’s plans before June of this year to build on this site. She also supported Provoznik’s statements, concurring that traffic now on Dunbar Lane was dangerous to children who were coming to and leaving from school.
     “You don’t even have the infrastructure to protect our children here now,” Rannisi-Owen said. She referred to the lack of crosswalks on a very busy road as well as the two major intersections, the Interstate 8 on-ramp and off-ramp.
     Kristen Wilhite was prepared for the meeting with a short visual on the traffic situation currently on Dunbar during the afternoon hours. Her video clearly showed a confused traffic situation, with children walking across intersections that had no safety precautions.
     At the end of her presentation, she pleaded for the school district to consider the children’s safety when choosing a site for their new school, as Chocolate Summit was clearly not a good choice.
     Another resident, Daniel Ruchalski, also that they were not notified of the plans. When asked later how it was possible that he did not know about GUHSD’s plans, he clarified that he doesn’t have any children who were high school students, and has no reason to pay attention to the district’s actions.
     Many of the residents received notification only on Tuesday of this scoping meeting to be held that night, and at the short notice showed up to voice their own objections to Chocolate Summit as a considered study site.
     Ruchalski also added that the existing chicken ranch on that site has rendered the well water undrinkable, and the access to the site is ridiculous. “There is only one way in and out,” he said.
     Ruchalski also said that that some of the residents of this area were just finishing building projects of their own. One resident just finished building his home, while another resident was in the process of finaling. “You’re going to mess this all up because you have Chocolate Summit in the running,” he said.
     A resident from the Lazy A study site area also spoke up. She thanked Essentia, saying that Darryl Hernandez has been very forthcoming with information on this project, much more so that the district. She said though, that there was misinformation about certain study sites.
     If the Lazy A site is chosen by GUHSD for their high school project, there will be three families that would be displaced from their homes of over 20 years. Up until now, the general belief has been that the Lazy A site, if chosen, would not displace families from their homes.
     Alpine resident and long-time high school advocate Chuck Taylor urged, during his brief statements, to build the new high school, but choose a site that would not displace anyone.
     This, and the many other comments regarding displacement, points to the only remaining potential study site — Wright’s Field. No residences or families would have to be displaced if this site were eventually chosen, however, there are many environmental concerns with the property.

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