A seemingly schizophrenic set of court rulings this month in the lawsuit for millions of dollars in bond money, brought on by backers of a new Alpine high school against Grossmont Union High School District, had both sides alternating claims of victory and defeat.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit, which was filed by the Alpine Union School District and a group calling itself the Alpine Taxpayers for Bond Accountability, seeks to make GUHSD hold aside $42 million for a new high school they say was promised in Propositions H and U. And after a court ruling in June that ordered GUHSD to set aside the bond money, it appeared the Alpine school backers were going to win \u2013\u2013 but then they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n On Oct. 29, Superior Court Judge Joel Pressman reversed his own ruling and issued a tentative decision to dismiss the Alpine lawsuit and cancel a hearing scheduled for early December. Following oral arguments made in court on Oct. 30, Pressman formally dismissed the lawsuit on Nov. 3.<\/p>\n In a press statement from GUHSD issued that day, Superintendent Ralf Swensen said the ruling was a \u201cwelcome end\u201d to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n \u201cJudge Pressman carefully evaluated the facts of the case and points of law and concluded that the Alpine district\u2019s case was without merit,\u201d Swensen said. \u201cWe wholeheartedly agree with his decision.\u201d<\/p>\n It appeared that GUHSD had won its case \u2013\u2013\u00a0but then that changed.<\/p>\n Just hours after Pressman issued his dismissal of the lawsuit, an appeals court upheld the judge\u2019s earlier decision in favor of affirming the Alpine school\u2019s right to the Props H and U bond money.<\/p>\n In light of the appeals court decision, Pressman then ordered both sides back to court on Nov. 6 for a status conference and scheduled a new hearing for Dec. 17 at 9:30 a.m. The judge also suggested both sides consider a settlement and offered to facilitate one himself. He also suggested finding another judge because of his own previous, unsuccessful attempts to get both sides to settle.<\/p>\n In Pressman\u2019s decision to reverse his previous ruling and dismiss the lawsuit, he said that Props H or U are not \u201ccontracts to build\u201d a new high school. He cited the wording of both propositions that state GUHSD has the right to decide the priority of the hundred or so projects proposed in the propositions and clauses in Prop U that the district has to exceed a threshold of students before the Alpine school can be built. That threshold has not been met since 2012, Pressman ruled.<\/p>\n The appeals court\u2019s decision, however, agreed with Pressman\u2019s earlier ruling that Props H and U did intend for an Alpine school to be built. That decision cited the court was correct in ruling that \u201ca high school has been promised to voters at some point and there is an expectation that funds from [Prop] U would be used to finance construction.\u201d The appeals court also cited the fact that Prop U mentions the specific location of the proposed high school in the \u201cAlpine\/Blossom Valley Area\u201d as proof of the proposition\u2019s intention to build it.<\/p>\n \u201cJudge Pressman flipped Prop 39 on its ear when he reversed his decision and gave the board discretion over a voter-approved project,\u201d said Priscilla Shreiber, who is in the minority of \u00a0GUHSD board members that support building the Alpine school. Prop 39 is a state law that says money from bond measures must be spent on what the bond intended the money for.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve moved a lot of money to other projects,\u201d she said, adding that some of the projects the district has approved with bond money are not specifically mentioned in the language of the proposition. Schreiber said the bond measure was sold to taxpayers to build a new Alpine high school, improve energy efficiency and to fix buildings that are in disrepair. \u201cYou fix those before you build $20 million performing arts centers that weren\u2019t voter-approved,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n An events center at Grossmont High School is a project that won\u2019t have enough bond funding to build if the court rules that GUHSD must set aside the $42 million for an Alpine school.<\/p>\n Other projects that are in danger of losing funding include: security camera and safety upgrades for all schools; modernization of 12 classrooms for students currently housed in portables at Granite Hills; modernization of 50- and 60-year-old classrooms and an emergency fire lane at Helix; modernization of 50-year-old classrooms and a new events center at Mount Miguel; modernization of 50-year-old classrooms and new events center at Santana; and hygiene facilities for students with disabilities and replacement of outdated HVAC systems at West Hills.<\/p>\n \u201cBlocking these improvements and enhancements is not fair to the students and voters of East County,\u201d said Tony Manolatos, a consultant for GUHSD who is working on the Alpine lawsuit.<\/p>\n Manolatos said that GUHSD has the right to pass on building the Alpine school and move ahead on other projects like the events centers because the language of Prop U.<\/p>\n![\"Lawsuit_WEB\"](\"https:\/\/lamesacourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Lawsuit_WEB.jpg\")
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